The 2006 report Livestock's Long Shadow, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, states that "the livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as a whole. Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution."[1] (In this and much other FAO usage, but not always elsewhere, poultry are included as "livestock".) Some fraction of these effects is assignable to non-meat components of the livestock sector such as the wool, egg and dairy industries, and to the livestock used for tillage. Livestock have been estimated to provide power for tillage of as much as half of the world's cropland.[2] According to production data compiled by the FAO, 74 percent of global livestock product tonnage in 2011 was accounted for by non-meat products such as wool, eggs and milk.[3][not in citation given] Meat is also considered one of the prime factors contributing to the current sixth mass extinction.[4][5][6][7]

In November of 2017, 15,364 world scientists signed a Warning to Humanity calling for, among other things, drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of meat.[8]

Changes in demand for meat may change the environmental impact of meat production by influencing how much meat is produced. It has been estimated that global meat consumption may double from 2000 to 2050, mostly as a consequence of increasing world population, but also partly because of increased per capita meat consumption (with much of the per capita consumption increase occurring in the developing world).[9] Global production and consumption of poultry meat have recently been growing at more than 5 percent annually.[9] Trends vary among livestock sectors. For example, global per capita consumption of pork has increased recently (almost entirely due to changes in consumption within China), while global per capita consumption of ruminant meats has been declining.[9]

In comparison with grazing, intensive livestock production requires large quantities of harvested feed. The growing of cereals for feed in turn requires substantial areas of land. However, where grain is fed, less feed is required for meat production. This is due not only to the higher concentration of metabolizable energy in grain than in roughages, but also to the higher ratio of net energy of gain to net energy of maintenance where metabolizable energy intake is higher.[10] It takes seven pounds of feed to produce a pound of beef (live weight), compared to more than three pounds for a pound of pork and less than two pounds for a pound of chicken.[11] However, assumptions about feed quality are implicit in such generalizations. For example, production of a pound of beef cattle live weight may require between 4 and 5 pounds of feed high in protein and metabolizable energy content, or more than 20 pounds of feed of much lower quality.[10]

Free-range animal production requires land for grazing, which in some places has led to land use change. According to FAO, "Ranching-induced deforestation is one of the main causes of loss of some unique plant and animal species in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America as well as carbon release in the atmosphere."[12] This has implications for—among other things—meat consumption in Europe, which imports significant amounts of feed from Brazil.[13]

Raising animals for human consumption accounts for approximately 40% of the total amount of agricultural output in industrialized countries. Grazing occupies 26% of the earth's ice-free terrestrial surface, and feed crop production uses about one third of all arable land.[1]

Land quality decline is sometimes associated with overgrazing. Rangeland health classification reflects soil and site stability, hydrologic function, and biotic integrity.[14] By the end of 2002, the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had evaluated rangeland health on 7,437 grazing allotments (i.e., 35 percent of its grazing allotments or 36 percent of the land area contained in its grazing allotments) and found that 16 percent of these failed to meet rangeland health standards due to existing grazing practices or levels of grazing use. This led the BLM to infer that a similar percentage would be obtained when such evaluations were completed.[15] Soil erosion associated with overgrazing is an important issue in many dry regions of the world.[1] However, on US farmland, much less soil erosion is associated with pastureland used for livestock grazing than with land used for production of crops. Sheet and rill erosion is within estimated soil loss tolerance on 95.1 percent, and wind erosion is within estimated soil loss tolerance on 99.4 percent of US pastureland inventoried by the US Natural Resources Conservation Service.[16]

Environmental effects of grazing can be positive or negative, depending on the quality of management,[17] and grazing can have different effects on different soils[18] and different plant communities.[19] Grazing can sometimes reduce, and other times increase, biodiversity of grassland ecosystems.[20][21] A study comparing virgin grasslands under some grazed and nongrazed management systems in the US indicated somewhat lower soil organic carbon but higher soil nitrogen content with grazing.[22] In contrast, at the High Plains Grasslands Research Station in Wyoming, the top 30 cm of soil contained more organic carbon as well as more nitrogen on grazed pastures than on grasslands where livestock were excluded.[23] Similarly, on previously eroded soil in the Piedmont region of the US, pasture establishment with well-managed grazing of livestock resulted in high rates of both carbon and nitrogen sequestration relative to results obtained where grass was grown without grazing.[24] Such increases in carbon and nitrogen sequestration can help mitigate greenhouse gas emission effects. In some cases, ecosystem productivity may be increased due to grazing effects on nutrient cycling.[25]

Virtual water use for livestock production includes water used in producing feed. However, virtual water use data, such as those shown in the table, are often unrelated to environmental impacts of water use. For example, in a high-rainfall area, if similar soil infiltration capacity is maintained across different land uses, mm of groundwater recharge and hence sustainability of water use tends to be about the same for food crop production, meat-yielding livestock production, and saddle horse production, although virtual water use per kg of food produced may be several hundred L, several thousand L, and an infinite number of L, respectively. In contrast, in some low-rainfall areas, some livestock production is more sustainable than food crop production, from a water use standpoint, despite higher virtual water use per kg of food produced. This is because unirrigated land in many water-short areas may support grassland ecosystems in perpetuity, and thus may be able to support well-managed, extensive production of grazing cattle or sheep with a sustainable level of water use, even where large-scale production of more water-demanding food crops would be unsustainable in the long run due to inadequate surface water supplies and inadequate groundwater recharge to sustain a high level of withdrawn water use for irrigation. Such considerations are important on much rangeland in western North America and elsewhere that can support cow-calf operations, backgrounding of stocker cattle, and sheep flocks. In the US, withdrawn surface water and groundwater use for crop irrigation exceeds that for livestock by about a ratio of 60:1.[27]

Also, the high virtual water use figures associated with meat production do not necessarily imply reduction of water use if food crops are produced, instead of livestock. For example, some grazing lands are unsuitable for food crop production, so that evapotranspirational water use would continue on land vacated by livestock, while additional water would be needed for crops to provide substituting food from lands elsewhere, and additional water would also be needed to produce substitutes for the non-food products of livestock. (In the US, Land Capability Classes V, VI and VII contain soils unsuited for cultivation, much of which is suitable for grazing. Of non-federal land in the US, about 43 percent is classed as unsuitable for cultivation.)

Irrigation accounts for about 37 percent of US withdrawn freshwater use, and groundwater provides about 42 percent of US irrigation water.[27] Irrigation water applied in production of livestock feed and forage has been estimated to account for about 9 percent of withdrawn freshwater use in the United States.[28] Groundwater depletion is a concern in some areas because of sustainability issues (and in some cases, land subsidence and/or saltwater intrusion).[29] A particularly important North American example where depletion is occurring involves the High Plains (Ogallala) Aquifer, which underlies about 174,000 square miles in parts of eight states, and supplies 30 percent of the groundwater withdrawn for irrigation in the US.[30] Some irrigated livestock feed production is not hydrologically sustainable in the long run because of aquifer depletion. However, rainfed agriculture, which cannot deplete its water source, produces much of the livestock feed in North America. Corn (maize) is of particular interest, accounting for about 91.8 percent of the grain fed to US livestock and poultry in 2010.[31]:table 1–75 About 14 percent of US corn-for grain land is irrigated, accounting for about 17 percent of US corn-for-grain production, and about 13 percent of US irrigation water use,[32][33] but only about 40 percent of US corn grain is fed to US livestock and poultry.[31]:table 1–38 Together, these figures indicate that most production of grain used for US livestock and poultry feed does not deplete water resources and that irrigated production of grain for livestock feed accounts for a small fraction of US irrigation water use. However, where production relies on irrigation from groundwater reserves, water table monitoring is appropriate to provide timely warning if groundwater depletion occurs.

In the Western United States, many stream and riparian habitats have been negatively affected by livestock grazing. This has resulted in increased phosphates, nitrates, decreased dissolved oxygen, increased temperature, turbidity, and eutrophication events, and reduced species diversity.[34][35] Livestock management options for riparian protection include salt and mineral placement, limiting seasonal access, use of alternative water sources, provision of "hardened" stream crossings, herding, and fencing.[36][37][38] In the Eastern United States, waste release from pork farms have also been shown to cause large-scale eutrophication of bodies of water, including the Mississippi River and Atlantic Ocean (Palmquist, et al., 1997). However, in North Carolina, where Palmquist's study was done, measures have since been taken to reduce the risk of accidental discharges from manure lagoons; also, since then there is evidence of improved environmental management in US hog production.[39] Implementation of manure and wastewater management planning can help assure low risk of problematic discharge into aquatic systems. (See Animal Waste section, below.)

At a global scale, the FAO has recently estimated that livestock (including poultry) accounts for about 14.5 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions estimated as 100-year CO2 equivalents.[40] A previous widely cited FAO report using somewhat more comprehensive analysis had estimated 18 percent.[1] Because this emission percentage includes contributions associated with livestock used for the production of draft power, eggs, wool and dairy products, the percentage attributable to meat production alone is significantly lower, as indicated by the report's data. The indirect effects contributing to the percentage include emissions associated with the production of feed consumed by livestock and carbon dioxide emission from deforestation in Central and South America, attributed to livestock production. Using a different sectoral assignment of emissions, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has estimated that agriculture (including not only livestock, but also food crop, biofuel and other production) accounted for about 10 to 12 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (expressed as 100-year carbon dioxide equivalents) in 2005[41] and in 2010.[42]

In the US, methane emissions associated with ruminant livestock (6.4 Mt in 2013)[43] are estimated to have declined by about 17 percent from 1980 through 2012.[3] Globally, enteric fermentation (mostly in ruminant livestock) accounts for about 27 percent of anthropogenic methane emissions,[44] and methane accounts for about 32 to 40 percent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions (estimated as 100-year carbon dioxide equivalents) as tabulated by the IPCC.[42] Methane has a global warming potential recently estimated as 35 times that of an equivalent mass of carbon dioxide.[44] However, despite the magnitude of methane emissions (recently about 330 to 350 Tg per year from all anthropogenic sources), methane’s current effect on global warming is quite small. This is because degradation of methane nearly keeps pace with emissions, resulting in a relatively little increase in atmospheric methane content (average of 6 Tg per year from 2000 through 2009), whereas atmospheric carbon dioxide content has been increasing greatly (average of nearly 15,000 Tg per year from 2000 through 2009).[44]

Mitigation options for reducing methane emission from ruminant enteric fermentation include genetic selection, immunization, rumen defaunation, diet modification and grazing management, among others.[45][46][47] The principal mitigation strategies identified for reduction of agricultural nitrous oxide emission are avoiding over-application of nitrogen fertilizers and adopting suitable manure management practices.[48][49] Mitigation strategies for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the livestock sector include adopting more efficient production practices to reduce agricultural pressure for deforestation (notably in Latin America), reducing fossil fuel consumption, and increasing carbon sequestrationin soils.[40] Australian scientists discovered that adding the seaweed Asparagopsis taxiformis to the cattle's diet can reduce methane by up to 99%, and reported a 3% seaweed diet resulted in an 80% reduction in methane.[50]

In New Zealand, nearly half of [anthropogenic] greenhouse gas emission is associated with agriculture, which plays a major role in the nation’s economy, and a large fraction of this is assignable to the livestock industry.[51] Some fraction of this is assignable to meat production: FAO data indicate that meat accounted for about 7 percent of product tonnage from New Zealand's livestock (including poultry) in 2010.[3] Livestock sources (including enteric fermentation and manure) account for about 3.1 percent of US anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents, according to US EPA figures compiled using UNFCCC methodologies.[52] Not all forms of meat and animal–based foods affect the environment equally. One study estimates that red meats are 150% more greenhouse gas intensive than chicken or fish.[53] According to another research group, the ranking of some food products in relation to greenhouse gas emissions is lamb (#1), beef (#2), cheese (#3), and pork (#4).[54] However, such ranking may not be broadly representative. Among sheep production systems, for example, there are very large differences in both energy use[55] and prolificacy;[56] both factors strongly influence emissions per kg of lamb production.

Meat production is a one of the leading creator of greenhouse gas emissions and other particulate matter pollution. With continued investigation it becomes apparent that this type of production chain produces copious byproducts. Endotoxin, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and particulate matter (PM) such as, dust are all released along with the aforementioned methane and CO2.[57] Furthermore, elevated greenhouse gas emissions have been associated with respiratory diseases like asthma, bronchitis, and COPD, as well as, increased chances of acquiring pneumonia from bacterial infections.[58]

In addition, exposure to PM10 (particulate matter 10 micrometers in diameter) may produce diseases that impact the upper and proximal airways.[59]However, farmers aren’t the only ones at risk for exposure to these harmful byproducts. In fact, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in proximity to residential areas adversely affect those individuals respiratory health similarly seen in the farmers.[60] Concentrated hog feeding operations release air pollutants from confinement buildings, manure holding pits, and land application of waste. Air pollutants from these operations have caused acute physical symptoms, such as respiratory illnesses, wheezing, increased breath rate, and irritation of the eyes and nose.[61][62][63] That prolonged exposure to airborne animal particulate, such as swine dust, induces large influx of inflammatory cells into the airways.[64] One can hypothesize that those in close proximity to CAFOs will be exposed to elevated levels of these byproducts and could lead to poor health and respiratory outcomes.

Data of a USDA study indicate that about 0.9 percent of energy use in the United States is accounted for by raising food-producing livestock and poultry. In this context, energy use includes energy from fossil, nuclear, hydroelectric, biomass, geothermal, technological solar, and wind sources. (It excludes solar energy captured by photosynthesis, used in hay drying, etc.) The estimated energy use in agricultural production includes embodied energy in purchased inputs.[65]

An important aspect of energy use of livestock production is the energy consumption that the animals contribute. Feed Conversion Ratio is an animal’s ability to covert feed into meat. The Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) is calculated by the taking the energy, protein or mass input of the feed divided by the output of meat provided by the animal. A lower FCR corresponds with a smaller requirement of feed per meat out-put, therefore the animal contributes less GHG emissions. Chickens and pigs usually have a lower FCR compared to ruminants.[66]

Intensification and other changes in the livestock industries influence energy use, emissions and other environmental effects of meat production. For example, in the US beef production system, practices prevailing in 2007 are estimated to have involved 8.6 percent less fossil fuel use, 16.3 percent less greenhouse gas emissions, 12.1 percent less water use and 33.0 percent less land use, per unit mass of beef produced, than in 1977.[67] These figures are based on analysis taking into account feed production, feedlot practices, forage-based cow-calf operations, backgrounding before cattle enter a feedlot, and production of culled dairy cows.

Water pollution due to animal waste is a common problem in both developed and developing nations[1]. The USA, Canada, India, Greece, Switzerland and several other countries are experiencing major environmental degradation due to water pollution via animal waste[68]:Table I-1. Concerns about such problems are particularly acute in the case of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). In the US, a permit for a CAFO requires implementation of a plan for management of manure nutrients, contaminants, wastewater, etc., as applicable, to meet requirements under the Clean Water Act.[69] There were about 19,000 CAFOs in the US as of 2008.[70] In fiscal 2014, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) concluded 26 enforcement actions for various violations by CAFOs.[71] Environmental performance of the US livestock industry can be compared with several other industries. The EPA has published 5-year and 1-year data for 32 industries on their ratios of enforcement orders to inspections, a measure of non-compliance with environmental regulations: principally, those under Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. For the livestock industry, inspections focused primarily on CAFOs. Of the 31 other industries, 4 (including crop production) had a better 5-year environmental record than the livestock industry, 2 had a similar record, and 25 had a worse record in this respect. For the most recent year of the five-year compilation, livestock production and dry cleaning had the best environmental records of the 32 industries, each with an enforcement order/inspection ratio of 0.01. For crop production, the ratio was 0.02. Of the 32 industries, oil and gas extraction and the livestock industry had the lowest percentages of facilities with violations.[72]

With good management, manure has environmental benefits. Manure deposited on pastures by grazing animals themselves is applied efficiently for maintaining soil fertility. Animal manures are also commonly collected from barns and concentrated feeding areas for efficient re-use of many nutrients in crop production, sometimes after composting. For many areas with high livestock density, manure application substantially replaces application of synthetic fertilizers on surrounding cropland. Manure was spread as a fertilizer on about 15.8 million acres of US cropland in 2006.[73] Manure is also spread on forage-producing land that is grazed, rather than cropped. Altogether, in 2007, manure was applied on about 22.1 million acres in the United States.[33] Substitution of animal manure for synthetic fertilizer has important implications for energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, considering that between about 43 and 88 MJ (i.e. between about 10 and 21 Mcal) of fossil fuel energy are used per kg of N in the production of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers.[74]

Manure can also have environmental benefit as a renewable energy source, in digester systems yielding biogas for heating and/or electricity generation. Manure biogas operations can be found in Asia, Europe,[75][76] North America, and elsewhere. The US EPA estimates that as of July 2010, 157 manure digester systems for biogas energy were in operation on commercial-scale US livestock facilities.[77] System cost is substantial, relative to US energy values, which may be a deterrent to more widespread use, although additional factors, such as odor control and carbon credits, may improve benefit /cost ratios.[78]

Grazing (especially, overgrazing) may detrimentally affect certain wildlife species, e.g. by altering cover and food supplies. However, habitat modification by livestock grazing can also benefit some wildlife species. For example, in North America, various studies have found that grazing sometimes improves habitat for elk,[79] blacktailed prairie dogs,[80] sage grouse,[81] mule deer,[82][83] and numerous other species. A survey of refuge managers on 123 National Wildlife Refuges in the US tallied 86 species of wildlife considered positively affected and 82 considered negatively affected by refuge cattle grazing or haying.[84] Such mixed effects suggest that wildlife diversity may be enhanced and maintained by grazing livestock in some places while excluding livestock in some places. The kind of grazing system employed (e.g. rest-rotation, deferred grazing, HILF grazing) is often important in achieving grazing benefits for particular wildlife species.[85]

Some scientists claim that the growing demand for meat is contributing to significant biodiversity loss as it is a significant driver of deforestation and habitat destruction; species-rich habitats, such as significant portions of the Amazon region, are being converted to agriculture for meat production.[86][87][88] Nearly 40% of global land surface is being used for livestock farming.[89]

Approximately 90% of the total use of antimicrobials in the United States was for non-therapeutic purposes in agricultural production.[90] Livestock production has been associated with increased antibiotic resistance in bacteria,[91][92] and has been associated with the emergence of microbes which are resistant to multiple antimicrobials (often referred to as superbugs).[93]

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Among other environmental benefits of meat production, is the conversion of materials that might otherwise be wasted, to produce high-protein food. For example, Elferink et al. state that "Currently, 70 % of the feedstock used in the Dutch feed industry originates from the food processing industry."[94] US examples of "waste" conversion with regard to grain include feeding livestock the distillers grains (with solubles) remaining from ethanol production. For the marketing year 2009/2010, dried distillers grains used as livestock feed (and residual) in the US was estimated at 25.5 million metric tons.[95] Examples with regard to roughages include straw from barley and wheat crops (feedable especially to large-ruminant breeding stock when on maintenance diets),[10][96][97] and corn stover.[98][99] Also, small-ruminant flocks in North America (and elsewhere) are sometimes used on fields for removal of various crop residues inedible by humans, converting them to food.

1.
Agriculture
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Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology, genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts, the major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils, meats, fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo, other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, field, Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use resources to produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops. This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry, Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 15,000 years ago, rice was domesticated in China between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia at an unknown time

2.
Environmental impact of agriculture
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The environmental impact of agriculture varies based on the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. Ultimately, the impact depends on the production practices of the system used by farmers. The connection between emissions into the environment and the system is indirect, as it also depends on other climate variables such as rainfall. An example of a means-based indicator would be the quality of groundwater, an indicator reflecting the loss of nitrate to groundwater would be effect-based. The environmental impact of agriculture involves a variety of factors from the soil, to water, the air, animal and soil variety, people, plants, and the food itself. Some of the issues that are related to agriculture are climate change, deforestation, genetic engineering, irrigation problems, pollutants, soil degradation. Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes, both of which place on a worldwide scale. Global warming is projected to have significant impacts on conditions affecting agriculture, including temperature, precipitation and these conditions determine the carrying capacity of the biosphere to produce enough food for the human population and domesticated animals. Rising carbon dioxide levels would also have effects, both detrimental and beneficial, on crop yields, assessment of the effects of global climate changes on agriculture might help to properly anticipate and adapt farming to maximize agricultural production. Although the net impact of change on agricultural production is uncertain it is likely that it will shift the suitable growing zones for individual crops. Adjustment to this geographical shift will involve considerable economic costs and social impacts, agriculture also alters the Earths land cover, which can change its ability to absorb or reflect heat and light, thus contributing to radiative forcing. Deforestation is clearing the Earths forests on a large scale worldwide, one of the causes of deforestation is to clear land for pasture or crops. Deforestation causes the loss of habitat for millions of species, and is also a driver of climate change, trees act as a carbon sink, that is, they absorb carbon dioxide, an unwanted greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere. Removing trees releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and leaves behind fewer trees to absorb the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. In this way, deforestation exacerbates climate change, with no trees, landscapes that were once forests can potentially become barren deserts. The removal of trees also causes extreme fluctuations in temperature, genetically engineered crops are herbicide-tolerant, and their overuse has created herbicide resistant super weeds, which may ultimately increase the use of herbicides. Seed contamination is another problem of genetic engineering, it can occur from wind or bee pollination that is blown from genetically-engineered crops to normal crops, about 50% of corn and soybean samples and more than 80% of canola samples were found to be contaminated by Monsantos genes. This accidental contamination can cause farmers to lose a lot of money because they need to recall their products

3.
Pollution
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Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution, Air pollution has always accompanied civilizations. Pollution started from prehistoric times when man created the first fires, metal forging appears to be a key turning point in the creation of significant air pollution levels outside the home. The burning of coal and wood, and the presence of horses in concentrated areas made the cities the cesspools of pollution. The Industrial Revolution brought an infusion of untreated chemicals and wastes into local streams that served as the water supply, king Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal by proclamation in London in 1272, after its smoke became a problem. But the fuel was so common in England that this earliest of names for it was acquired because it could be carted away from some shores by the wheelbarrow and it was the industrial revolution that gave birth to environmental pollution as we know it today. London also recorded one of the extreme cases of water quality problems with the Great Stink on the Thames of 1858. Pollution issues escalated as population growth far exceeded view ability of neighborhoods to handle their waste problem, reformers began to demand sewer systems, and clean water. In 1870, the conditions in Berlin were among the worst in Europe. There were no toilets in the streets or squares. Visitors, especially women, often became desperate when nature called, in the public buildings the sanitary facilities were unbelievably primitive. As a metropolis, Berlin did not emerge from a state of barbarism into civilization until after 1870. Chicago and Cincinnati were the first two American cities to enact laws ensuring cleaner air in 1881, as historian Martin Melosi notes, The generation that first saw automobiles replacing the horses saw cars as miracles of cleanliness. By the 1940s, however, automobile-caused smog was an issue in Los Angeles. Other cities followed around the country early in the 20th century. Extreme smog events were experienced by the cities of Los Angeles and Donora, Pennsylvania in the late 1940s, Air pollution would continue to be a problem in England, especially later during the industrial revolution, and extending into the recent past with the Great Smog of 1952. Awareness of atmospheric pollution spread widely after World War II, with fears triggered by reports of fallout from atomic warfare. Then a non-nuclear event, The Great Smog of 1952 in London and this prompted some of the first major modern environmental legislation, The Clean Air Act of 1956

4.
Fossil fuel
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Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms, containing energy originating in ancient photosynthesis. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include petroleum, coal, and natural gas. Other commonly used derivatives include kerosene and propane, Fossil fuels range from volatile materials with low carbon, hydrogen ratios like methane, to liquids like petroleum, to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like anthracite coal. Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields either alone, associated with oil, non-fossil sources in 2006 included nuclear 8. 5%, hydroelectric 6. 3%, and others amounting to 0. 9%. World energy consumption was growing about 2. 3% per year, the use of fossil fuels raises serious environmental concerns. The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount, so there is a net increase of 10.65 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year. Carbon dioxide is a gas that increases radiative forcing and contributes to global warming. A global movement towards the generation of energy is underway to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Over geological time, this matter, mixed with mud. Despite these heat driven transformations, the energy is still photosynthetic in origin. There is a range of organic, or hydrocarbon, compounds in any given fuel mixture. The specific mixture of hydrocarbons gives a fuel its characteristic properties, such as boiling point, melting point, density, viscosity, some fuels like natural gas, for instance, contain only very low boiling, gaseous components. Others such as gasoline or diesel contain much higher boiling components, terrestrial plants, on the other hand, tend to form coal and methane. Many of the coal fields date to the Carboniferous period of Earths history, terrestrial plants also form type III kerogen, a source of natural gas. Fossil fuels are of importance because they can be burned. The use of coal as a fuel predates recorded history, coal was used to run furnaces for the melting of metal ore. Semi-solid hydrocarbons from seeps were also burned in ancient times, commercial exploitation of petroleum, largely as a replacement for oils from animal sources, for use in oil lamps began in the 19th century. Natural gas, once flared-off as an byproduct of petroleum production, is now considered a very valuable resource

5.
Organic farming
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Organic farming is an alternative agricultural system which originated early in the 20th century in reaction to rapidly changing farming practices. Organic agriculture continues to be developed by various organic agriculture organizations today and it relies on fertilizers of organic origin such as compost, manure, green manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation and companion planting. Biological pest control, mixed cropping and the fostering of insect predators are encouraged, in general, organic standards are designed to allow the use of naturally occurring substances while prohibiting or strictly limiting synthetic substances. For instance, naturally occurring pesticides such as pyrethrin and rotenone are permitted, while synthetic fertilizers, synthetic substances that are allowed include, for example, copper sulfate, elemental sulfur and Ivermectin. Genetically modified organisms, nanomaterials, human sewage sludge, plant growth regulators, hormones, since 1990 the market for organic food and other products has grown rapidly, reaching $63 billion worldwide in 2012. This demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland that grew from 2001 to 2011 at a rate of 8. 9% per annum. As of 2011, approximately 37,000,000 hectares worldwide were farmed organically, Agriculture was practiced for thousands of years without the use of artificial chemicals. Artificial fertilizers were first created during the mid-19th century and these early fertilizers were cheap, powerful, and easy to transport in bulk. Similar advances occurred in chemical pesticides in the 1940s, leading to the decade being referred to as the pesticide era, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, soil biology scientists began to seek ways to remedy these side effects while still maintaining higher production. Biodynamic agriculture was the first modern system of agriculture to focus exclusively on organic methods and its development began in 1924 with a series of eight lectures on agriculture given by Rudolf Steiner. The one hundred eleven attendees, less than half of whom were farmers, came from six countries, primarily Germany, the lectures were published in November 1924, the first English translation appeared in 1928 as The Agriculture Course. In 1921, Albert Howard and his wife Gabrielle Howard, accomplished botanists, stimulated by these experiences of traditional farming, when Albert Howard returned to Britain in the early 1930s he began to promulgate a system of natural agriculture. One of the purposes of the conference was to bring together the proponents of various approaches to organic agriculture in order that they might cooperate within a larger movement. Howard attended the conference, where he met Pfeiffer, in the following year, Northbourne published his manifesto of organic farming, Look to the Land, in which he coined the term organic farming. The Betteshanger conference has been described as the link between biodynamic agriculture and other forms of organic farming. In 1940 Howard published his An Agricultural Testament, in this book he adopted Northbournes terminology of organic farming. Howards work spread widely, and he became known as the father of organic farming for his work in applying scientific knowledge and these became important influences on the spread of organic agriculture. Further work was done by Lady Eve Balfour in the United Kingdom, increasing environmental awareness in the general population in modern times has transformed the originally supply-driven organic movement to a demand-driven one

6.
Free range
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Free range denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals, for at least part of the day, can roam freely outdoors, rather than being confined in an enclosure for 24 hours each day. Free range may apply to meat, eggs or dairy farming, the term is used in two senses that do not overlap completely, as a farmer-centric description of husbandry methods, and as a consumer-centric description of them. There is a diet where the practitioner only eats meat from free-range sources called ethical omnivorism, in ranching, free-range livestock are permitted to roam without being fenced in, as opposed to fenced-in pastures. In many of the economies, free-range livestock are quite common. If one allows free range to include herding, free range was a typical husbandry method at least until the development of barbed wire and chicken wire. In the case of poultry, free range was the dominant system until the discovery of vitamins A and D in the 1920s, before that, green feed and sunshine were necessary to provide the necessary vitamin content. Some large commercial breeding flocks were reared on pasture into the 1950s, nutritional science resulted in the increased use of confinement for other livestock species in much the same way. In the United States, USDA free range regulations currently apply only to poultry, the USDA regulations do not specify the quality or size of the outside range nor the duration of time an animal must have access to the outside. There have been proposals to regulate by the USDA the labeling of products as free range within the United States. Yarding, as well as floorless portable chicken pens may have some of the benefits of free-range livestock but, in reality, a behavioral definition of free range is perhaps the most useful, chickens kept with a fence that restricts their movements very little. For example, according to Jull, The most effective measure of preventing cannibalism seems to be to give the good grass range. The U. S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service requires that chickens raised for their meat have access to the outside in order to receive the free-range certification. There is no requirement for access to pasture, and there may be access to dirt or gravel. Free-range chicken eggs, however, have no definition in the United States. Likewise, free-range egg producers have no standard on what the term means. The broadness of free range in the U. S. has caused people to look for alternative terms. Pastured poultry is a term promoted by farmer/author Joel Salatin for broiler chickens raised on pasture for all of their lives except for the initial brooding period. The Pastured Poultry concept is promoted by the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association, traditional American usage equates free range with unfenced, and with the implication that there was no herdsman keeping them together or managing them in any way

7.
Intensive animal farming
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The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption. There are issues regarding whether factory farming is sustainable and ethical, there are differences in the way factory farming techniques are practiced around the world. There is a debate over the benefits, risks and ethical questions of factory farming. The issues include the efficiency of production, animal welfare, whether it is essential for feeding the growing global population. The practice of animal agriculture is a relatively recent development in the history of agriculture. Innovations in agriculture beginning in the late 19th century generally parallel developments in production in other industries that characterized the latter part of the Industrial Revolution. The discovery of vitamins and their role in nutrition, in the first two decades of the 20th century, led to vitamin supplements, which allowed chickens to be raised indoors. The discovery of antibiotics and vaccines facilitated raising livestock in larger numbers by reducing disease, chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides. Developments in shipping networks and technology have made distribution of agricultural produce feasible. Agricultural production across the world doubled four times between 1820 and 1975 to feed a population of one billion human beings in 1800 and 6.5 billion in 2002. During the same period, the number of involved in farming dropped as the process became more automated. The United Nations writes that intensification of production was seen as a way of providing food security. In 1966, the United States, United Kingdom and other industrialized nations, commenced factory farming of beef and dairy cattle, in 1990 factory farming accounted for 30% of world meat production and by 2005 this had risen to 40%. Factory farms hold large numbers of animals, typically cows, pigs, turkeys, or chickens, often indoors, the aim of the operation is to produce large quantities of meat, eggs, or milk at the lowest possible cost. Physical restraints, e. g. fences or creeps, are used to control movement or actions regarded as undesirable, breeding programs are used to produce animals more suited to the confined conditions and able to provide a consistent food product. Intensive production of livestock and poultry is widespread in developed nations, Industrial production was estimated to account for 39 percent of the sum of global production of these meats and 50 percent of total egg production. In the U. S. according to its National Pork Producers Council,80 million of its 95 million pigs slaughtered each year are reared in industrial settings, in the United States, chickens were raised primarily on family farms until 1965. Originally, the value in poultry was eggs, and meat was considered a byproduct of egg production

8.
Subsistence agriculture
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Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed themselves and their families. The output is mostly for local requirements with little or no surplus trade, the typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to feed and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made principally with an eye toward what the family will need during the coming year, tony Waters writes, Subsistence peasants are people who grow what they eat, build their own houses, and live without regularly making purchases in the marketplace. Subsistence agriculture also emerged independently in Mexico where it was based on cultivation. Subsistence agriculture was the dominant mode of production in the world until recently, Subsistence horticulture may have developed independently in South East Asia and Papua New Guinea. Subsistence farming continues today in parts of rural Africa, and parts of Asia. Many of the items, as well as occasional services from physicians, veterinarians, blacksmiths. In Central and Eastern Europe subsistence and semi-subsistence agriculture reappeared within the economy since about 1990. In this type of agriculture, a patch of forest land is cleared by a combination of felling and burning, and crops are grown. After 2-3 years the fertility of the soil begins to decline, the land is abandoned, while the land is left fallow the forest regrows in the cleared area and soil fertility and biomass is restored. After a decade or more, the farmer may return to the first piece of land, shifting cultivation is called Dredd in India, Ladang in Indonesia and Milpa in Central America and Mexico. However, such farmers often recognize the value of such compost and they also may irrigate part of such fields if they are near a source of water. In some areas of tropical Africa, at least, such smaller fields may be ones in which crops are grown on raised beds, thus farmers practicing slash and burn agriculture are often much more sophisticated agriculturalists than the term slash and burn subsistence farmers suggest. In this type of farming people migrate along with their animals from one place to another in search of fodder for their animals, generally they rear cattle, sheep, goats, camels and/or yaks for milk, skin, meat and wool. This way of life is common in parts of central and western Asia, India, east and south-west Africa, examples are the nomadic Bhotiyas and Gujjars of the Himalayas. In Intensive subsistence agriculture, the farmer cultivates a small plot of land using simple tools, climate, with large number of days with sunshine and fertile soils permits growing of more than one crop annually on the same plot. Farmers use their land holdings to produce enough, for their local consumption. It results in more food being produced per acre compared to other subsistence patterns

9.
Hunting
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Hunting is the practice of killing or trapping animals, or pursuing or tracking them with the intent of doing so. Hunting wildlife or feral animals is most commonly done by humans for food, recreation, to predators that are dangerous to humans or domestic animals. Lawful hunting is distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species. The species that are hunted are referred to as game or prey and are usually mammals, Hunting can also be a means of pest control. However, hunting has also contributed to the endangerment, extirpation and extinction of many animals. The pursuit, capture and release, or capture for food of fish is called fishing, the practice of foraging or gathering materials from plants and mushrooms is also considered separate from hunting. The word hunt serves as both a noun and a verb, the noun has been dated to the early 12th century, act of chasing game, from the verb hunt. The meaning of a body of persons associated for the purpose of hunting with a pack of hounds is first recorded in the 1570s, meaning the act of searching for someone or something is from about 1600. The verb, Old English huntian to chase game, perhaps developed from hunta hunter, is related to hentan to seize, from Proto-Germanic huntojan, the general sense of search diligently is first recorded c. Hunting has a history and may well pre-date the rise of the species Homo sapiens. Evidence from western Kenya suggests that hunting has been occurring for more two million years. Furthermore, evidence exists that hunting may have one of the multiple environmental factors leading to the Holocene extinction of megafauna. North American megafauna extinction was coincidental with the Younger Dryas impact event, however, in other locations such as Australia, humans are thought to have played a very significant role in the extinction of the Australian megafauna that was widespread prior to human occupation. The closest surviving relatives of the species are the two species of Pan, the common chimpanzee and bonobos. Common chimpanzees have a diet that includes troop hunting behaviour based on beta males being led by an alpha male. Bonobos have also observed to occasionally engage in group hunting. With the establishment of language, culture, and religion, hunting became a theme of stories and myths, as well as such as dance. Hunting was a component of hunter-gatherer societies before the domestication of livestock

10.
Fishing
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Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild, techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping. Fishing may include catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as molluscs, cephalopods, crustaceans, the term is not normally applied to catching farmed fish, or to aquatic mammals, such as whales where the term whaling is more appropriate. According to United Nations FAO statistics, the number of commercial fishermen. Fisheries and aquaculture provide direct and indirect employment to over 500 million people in developing countries, in 2005, the worldwide per capita consumption of fish captured from wild fisheries was 14.4 kilograms, with an additional 7.4 kilograms harvested from fish farms. In addition to providing food, modern fishing is also a recreational pastime, Fishing is an ancient practice that dates back to at least the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period about 40,000 years ago. Isotopic analysis of the remains of Tianyuan man, a 40. Archaeology features such as middens, discarded fish bones, and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival. During this period, most people lived a lifestyle and were, of necessity. However, where there are examples of permanent settlements such as those at Lepenski Vir. The British dogger was a type of sailing trawler from the 17th century. The Brixham trawler that evolved there was of a build and had a tall gaff rig. They were also sufficiently robust to be able to tow large trawls in deep water, the great trawling fleet that built up at Brixham, earned the village the title of Mother of Deep-Sea Fisheries. The small village of Grimsby grew to become the largest fishing port in the world by the mid 19th century, an Act of Parliament was first obtained in 1796, which authorised the construction of new quays and dredging of the Haven to make it deeper. It was only in the 1846, with the expansion in the fishing industry. The foundation stone for the Royal Dock was laid by Albert the Prince consort in 1849, the dock covered 25 acres and was formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1854 as the first modern fishing port. The elegant Brixham trawler spread across the world, influencing fishing fleets everywhere, by the end of the 19th century, there were over 3,000 fishing trawlers in commission in Britain, with almost 1,000 at Grimsby. These trawlers were sold to fishermen around Europe, including from the Netherlands, twelve trawlers went on to form the nucleus of the German fishing fleet

11.
Livestock's Long Shadow
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The assessment was based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture required for livestock production. The report states that the sector is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. Based on this report, senior U. N, following this approach the report estimates that livestock contributes to about 9% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, but 37% of methane and 65% of nitrous oxide emissions. Meat industry sources object to the used in the UN report. These measurements clearly document higher CH4 production for cattle receiving low-quality, subsequent studies have supported this conclusion. S. These were placed separately into the Energy chapter, Land Use, Land-Use Change chapter and this is also true in the US EPAs 2009 Draft U. S. Some criticisms included the FAOs use of the 100-year global-warming potential of CH4 rather than the 20-year GWP favored by Goodland, however, Goodland and Anhang continue to use the 100-year GWP for anthropogenic greenhouse gases in their analysis, with the sole exception of methane emissions from livestock. More controversially, Goodland and Anhang argue that animal respiration should be included, despite widely adopted conventions that they be treated as part of carbon cycle. The report was received by the FAO and has been cited by several UN agencies. Despite that, some criticism on Livestock and Climate Change was received including from within the FAO, using revised methods and a later reference year, the FAO subsequently estimated that livestock accounted for 14.5 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The report was the main source for the documentary Meat The Truth. It was also referenced as a scientific source in the documentary Cowspiracy. Environmental issues with agriculture Stock-free agriculture Veganism Livestocks Long Shadow – Environmental Issues, animal Ag’s Role in Greenhouse Gas Production, a webcast by the Livestock and Poultry Environmental Learning Center. UN urges global move to meat and dairy-free diet, The Guardian, June 2010

12.
Food and Agriculture Organization
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is an agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements. Its Latin motto, fiat panis, translates as let there be bread, as of 6 January 2017, FAO has 194 member states, along with the European Union, and the Faroe Islands and Tokelau, which are associate members. The idea of an organization for food and agriculture emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century. In May–June 1905, a conference was held in Rome, Italy. Later in 1943, the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt called a United Nations Conference on Food, representatives from forty four governments gathered at The Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia from 18 May to 3 June. The First Session of the FAO Conference was held in the Chateau frontenac at Quebec, Canada, the Second World War effectively ended the International Agricultural Institute, though it was only officially dissolved by resolution of its Permanent Committee on 27 February 1948. Its functions were transferred to the recently established FAO. In 1951, FAOs headquarters were moved from Washington, D. C, the agency is directed by the Conference of Member Nations, which meets every two years to review the work carried out by the organization and to Work and Budget for the next two-year period. The Conference elects a council of 49 member states that acts as a governing body, and the Director-General. Beginning in 1994, FAO underwent the most significant restructuring since its founding, to operations, streamline procedures. As a result, savings of about US$50 million, €35 million a year were realized, FAOs Regular Programme budget is funded by its members, through contributions set at the FAO Conference. The total FAO Budget planned for 2016-17 is USD2.6 billion, the voluntary contributions are expected to reach approximately US$1.6 billion in 2016-17. The world headquarters are located in Rome, in the seat of the Department of Italian East Africa. One of the most notable features of the building was the Axum Obelisk which stood in front of the agency seat and it was taken from Ethiopia by Benito Mussolinis troops in 1937 as a war chest, and returned on 18 April 2005. C. Reduce rural poverty – help the rural poor gain access to the resources and services they need – including rural employment, enable inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems – help to build safe and efficient food systems that support smallholder agriculture and reduce poverty and hunger in rural areas. Two fundamental areas of work – gender and governance - are fully integrated in the strategic objective action plans. In 1996, FAO organised the World Food Summit, attended by 112 Heads or Deputy Heads of State, the Summit concluded with the signing of the Rome Declaration, which established the goal of halving the number of people who suffer from hunger by the year 2015

13.
United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General

14.
Greenhouse gas
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A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earths atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earths surface would be about −18 °C, rather than the present average of 15 °C. In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have produced a 40% increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, from 280 ppm in 1750 to 400 ppm in 2015. This increase has occurred despite the uptake of a portion of the emissions by various natural sinks involved in the carbon cycle. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from combustion of fuels, principally coal, oil. Greenhouse gases are those that absorb and emit infrared radiation in the range emitted by Earth. The proportion of an emission remaining in the atmosphere after a time is the airborne fraction. The annual airborne fraction is the ratio of the increase in a given year to that years total emissions. Over the last 50 years the annual airborne fraction for CO2 has been increasing at 0.25 ±0. 21%/year, therefore, they do not contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect and usually are omitted when discussing greenhouse gases. Some gases have indirect radiative effects and this happens in two main ways. One way is that when they break down in the atmosphere they produce another greenhouse gas, for example, methane and carbon monoxide are oxidized to give carbon dioxide. Oxidation of CO to CO2 directly produces an increase in radiative forcing although the reason is subtle. The peak of the thermal IR emission from Earths surface is close to a strong vibrational absorption band of CO2. On the other hand, the single CO vibrational band only absorbs IR at much higher frequencies, where the ~300 K thermal emission of the surface is at least a factor of ten lower. Oxidation of methane to CO2, which requires reactions with the OH radical, produces a reduction, since CO2 is a weaker greenhouse gas than methane. As described below this is not the story, since the oxidations of CO. In any case, the calculation of the radiative effect needs to include both the direct and indirect forcing

15.
Biodiversity
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Biodiversity, a contraction of biological diversity, generally refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. One of the most widely used definitions defines it in terms of the variability within species and it is a measure of the variety of organisms present in different ecosystems. This can refer to genetic variation, ecosystem variation, or species variation within an area, biome, terrestrial biodiversity tends to be greater near the equator, which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productivity. Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth, and is richest in the tropics and these tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 10 per cent of earths surface, and contain about 90 percent of the worlds species. Marine biodiversity tends to be highest along coasts in the Western Pacific, there are latitudinal gradients in species diversity. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots, and has been increasing through time, the number and variety of plants, animals and other organisms that exist is known as biodiversity. It is a component of nature and it ensures the survival of human species by providing food, fuel, shelter, medicines. The richness of biodiversity depends on the conditions and area of the region. All species of plants taken together are known as flora and about 300,000 species of plants are known to date, all species of animals taken together are known as fauna which includes birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, insects, crustaceans, molluscs, etc. Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions, more than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037 and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living on Earth. The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, there are microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia. Other early physical evidence of a substance is graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old meta-sedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland. More recently, in 2015, remains of life were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. According to one of the researchers, If life arose relatively quickly on Earth, then it could be common in the universe

16.
Water pollution
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Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies. This form of environmental degradation occurs when pollutants are directly or indirectly discharged into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds, Water pollution affects the entire biosphere – plants and organisms living in these bodies of water. In almost all cases the effect is damaging not only to individual species and population, Water pollution is a major global problem which requires ongoing evaluation and revision of water resource policy at all levels. It has been suggested that pollution is the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases. An estimated 580 people in India die of water related illness every day. About 90 percent of the water in the cities of China is polluted, as of 2007, half a billion Chinese had no access to safe drinking water. In addition to the problems of water pollution in developing countries. The head of Chinas national development agency said in 2007 that one quarter the length of Chinas seven main rivers were so poisoned the water harmed the skin. Natural phenomena such as volcanoes, algae blooms, storms, and earthquakes also cause changes in water quality. Although interrelated, surface water and groundwater have often studied and managed as separate resources. Surface water seeps through the soil and becomes groundwater, conversely, groundwater can also feed surface water sources. Sources of surface water pollution are generally grouped into two based on their origin. Point source water pollution refers to contaminants that enter a waterway from a single, identifiable source, examples of sources in this category include discharges from a sewage treatment plant, a factory, or a city storm drain. The U. S. Clean Water Act defines point source for regulatory enforcement purposes, the CWA definition of point source was amended in 1987 to include municipal storm sewer systems, as well as industrial storm water, such as from construction sites. Nonpoint source pollution refers to contamination that does not originate from a single discrete source. NPS pollution is often the cumulative effect of small amounts of contaminants gathered from a large area, a common example is the leaching out of nitrogen compounds from fertilized agricultural lands. Nutrient runoff in storm water from sheet flow over a field or a forest are also cited as examples of NPS pollution. Contaminated storm water washed off of parking lots, roads and highways, however, because this runoff is typically channeled into storm drain systems and discharged through pipes to local surface waters, it becomes a point source

17.
Poultry
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Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the eggs they produce, their meat, or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae, especially the order Galliformes, if there are ducks and or geese that are kept as pets they shall not be considered poultry unlike domesticated chickens. Poultry also includes other birds that are killed for their meat, such as the young of pigeons but does not include wild birds hunted for sport or food. The word poultry comes from the French/Norman word poule, itself derived from the Latin word pullus, the domestication of poultry took place several thousand years ago. This may have originally been as a result of people hatching and rearing young birds from eggs collected from the wild, but later involved keeping the birds permanently in captivity. Domesticated chickens may have used for cockfighting at first and quail kept for their songs. Selective breeding for fast growth, egg-laying ability, conformation, plumage and docility took place over the centuries, although some birds are still kept in small flocks in extensive systems, most birds available in the market today are reared in intensive commercial enterprises. Poultry is the second most widely eaten type of meat globally and, along with eggs, all poultry meat should be properly handled and sufficiently cooked in order to reduce the risk of food poisoning. The word poultry comes from the Middle English pultrie, from Old French pouletrie, from pouletier, poultry dealer, the word pullet itself comes from Middle English pulet, from Old French polet, both from Latin pullus, a young fowl, young animal or chicken. The word fowl is of Germanic origin, poultry can be defined as domestic fowls, including chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks, raised for the production of meat or eggs and the word is also used for the flesh of these birds used as food. The Encyclopædia Britannica lists the bird groups but also includes guinea fowl. In colloquial speech, the term fowl is often used near-synonymously with domesticated chicken, or with poultry or even just bird, both words are also used for the flesh of these birds. Poultry can be distinguished from game, defined as wild birds or mammals hunted for food or sport, chickens are medium-sized, chunky birds with an upright stance and characterised by fleshy red combs and wattles on their heads. Males, known as cocks, are larger, more boldly coloured. Chickens are gregarious, omnivorous, ground-dwelling birds that in their natural surroundings search among the leaf litter for seeds, invertebrates and they seldom fly except as a result of perceived danger, preferring to run into the undergrowth if approached. Todays domestic chicken is descended from the wild red junglefowl of Asia. Domestication is believed to have taken place between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago, and what are thought to be fossilized chicken bones have been found in northeastern China dated to around 5,400 BC. Archaeologists believe domestication was originally for the purpose of cockfighting, the bird being a doughty fighter

18.
Tillage
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Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shovelling, picking, mattock work, hoeing, examples of draft-animal-powered or mechanized work include ploughing, rototilling, rolling with cultipackers or other rollers, harrowing, and cultivating with cultivator shanks. There is a continuum, however. Any type of gardening or farming, but especially larger-scale commercial types, Tillage is often classified into two types, primary and secondary. There is no boundary between them so much as a loose distinction between tillage that is deeper and more thorough and tillage that is shallower and sometimes more selective of location. Harrowing and rototilling often combine primary and secondary tillage into one operation, Tillage can also mean the land that is tilled. The word cultivation has several senses that overlap substantially with those of tillage, in a general context, both can refer to agriculture. Within agriculture, both can refer to any kind of soil agitation, additionally, cultivation or cultivating may refer to an even narrower sense of shallow, selective secondary tillage of row crop fields that kills weeds while sparing the crop plants. Reduced tillage leaves between 15 and 30% residue cover on the soil or 500 to 1000 pounds per acre of small grain residue during the critical erosion period and this may involve the use of a chisel plow, field cultivators, or other implements. See the general comments below to see how they can affect the amount of residue, intensive tillage leaves less than 15% crop residue cover or less than 500 pounds per acre of small grain residue. Intensive tillage often involves multiple operations with such as a mold board, disk. Then a finisher with a harrow, rolling basket, and cutter can be used to prepare the seed bed. Conservation tillage leaves at least 30% of crop residue on the soil surface and this slows water movement, which reduces the amount of soil erosion. Conservation tillage also benefits farmers by reducing consumption and soil compaction. By reducing the number of times the farmer travels over the field, farmers realize significant savings in fuel, in most years since 1997, conservation tillage was used in US cropland more than intensive or reduced tillage. However, conservation tillage delays warming of the due to the reduction of dark earth exposure to the warmth of the spring sun. No-till - Never use a plow, disk, etc. ever again, strip-Till - Narrow strips are tilled where seeds will be planted, leaving the soil in between the rows untilled. Mulch-till Rotational Tillage - Tilling the soil every two years or less often, ridge-Till Zone tillage Zone tillage is a form of modified deep tillage in which only narrow strips are tilled, leaving soil in between the rows untilled

19.
Holocene extinction
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The large number of extinctions spans numerous families of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods. With widespread degradation of highly biodiverse habitats such as reefs and rainforest, as well as other areas. The Holocene extinction includes the disappearance of land animals known as megafauna. These extinctions, occurring near the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary, are referred to as the Quaternary extinction event. The arrival of humans on different continents coincides with megafaunal extinction, the most popular theory is that human overhunting of species added to existing stress conditions. Aside from humans, climate change may have been a factor in the megafaunal extinctions. The ecology of humanity has been noted as being that of an unprecedented global superpredator that regularly preys on the adults of other predators and has worldwide effects on food webs. Extinctions of species have occurred on every land mass and ocean, with famous examples within Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, North and South America. Overall, the Holocene extinction can be characterized by the impact on the environment. A ballooning human population along with profligate consumption are considered to be the drivers of this rapid decline. In many cases, it is suggested even minimal hunting pressure was enough to wipe out large fauna, only during the most recent parts of the extinction have plants also suffered large losses. In The Future of Life, E. O. Wilson of Harvard calculated that, if the current rate of human disruption of the biosphere continues, one-half of Earths higher lifeforms will be extinct by 2100. A1998 poll conducted by the American Museum of Natural History found that seventy percent of biologists acknowledge the existence of the anthropogenic extinction. Numerous scientific studies — such as a 2004 report published in Nature and it is also the only known mass extinction of plants. One scientist estimates the current extinction rate may be 10,000 times the background extinction rate, nevertheless, most scientists predict a much lower extinction rate than this outlying estimate. Stuart Pimm stated the current rate of extinction is about 100 times the natural rate for plants. Mass extinctions are characterized by the loss of at least 75% of species within a short period of time. In a pair of studies published in 2015, extrapolation from observed extinction of Hawaiian snails led to the conclusion that 7% of all species on Earth may have been lost already

20.
Pork
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Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig. It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC, Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved. Curing extends the life of the pork products. Ham, smoked pork, gammon, bacon and sausage are examples of preserved pork, charcuterie is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, many from pork. Pork is the most popular meat in East and Southeast Asia and it is highly prized in Asian cuisines for its fat content and pleasant texture. Consumption of pork is forbidden by Jewish and Muslim dietary law, the sale of pork is illegal or severely restricted in Israel and in certain Muslim countries, particularly those where sharia law is part of their constitution. The pig is one of the oldest forms of livestock, having been domesticated as early as 5000 BC and it is believed to have been domesticated either in the Near East or in China from the wild boar. The adaptable nature and omnivorous diet of this creature allowed early humans to domesticate it much earlier than other forms of livestock. Pigs were mostly used for food, but people also used their hides for shields and shoes, their bones for tools and weapons, and their bristles for brushes. Charcuterie is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, pâtés, and confit, primarily from pork. Originally intended as a way to preserve meats before the advent of refrigeration, in 15th century France, local guilds regulated tradesmen in the food production industry in each city. The guilds that produced charcuterie were those of the charcutiers, the members of this guild produced a traditional range of cooked or salted and dried meats, which varied, sometimes distinctively, from region to region. The only raw meat the charcutiers were allowed to sell was unrendered lard, the charcutier prepared numerous items, including pâtés, rillettes, sausages, bacon, trotters, and head cheese. Due to the nature of the meat in Western culinary history. The year-round availability of meat and fruits has not diminished the popularity of this combination on Western plates, Pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world, accounting for about 38% of meat production worldwide. Consumption varies widely from place to place, the meat is taboo to eat in the Middle East and most of the Muslim world because of Jewish kosher and Islamic Halal dietary restrictions. But pork is widely consumed in East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, as the result, large numbers of pork recipes are developed throughout the world. Feijoada for example, the dish of Brazil, is traditionally prepared with pork trimmings, ears, tail

21.
Ruminant
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Ruminants are mammals that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through microbial actions. The process typically requires the fermented ingesta to be regurgitated and chewed again, the process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called rumination. The word ruminant comes from the Latin ruminare, which means to chew over again, the roughly 150 species of ruminants includes both domestic and wild species. Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, yaks, deer, antelope and it has also been suggested that notoungulates also relied on rumination, as opposed to other antlantogenates that relied on the more typical hindgut fermentation, though this is not entirely certain. Taxonomically, the suborder Ruminantia is a lineage of herbivorous artiodactyls that includes the most advanced, the term ruminant is not synonymous with Ruminantia. The suborder Ruminantia includes many ruminant species, but does not include tylopods, the primary difference between a ruminant and nonruminant is that ruminants have a four-compartment stomach. The four parts are the rumen, reticulum, omasum, in the first two chambers, the rumen and the reticulum, the food is mixed with saliva and separates into layers of solid and liquid material. Solids clump together to form the cud or bolus, the cud is then regurgitated and chewed to completely mix it with saliva and to break down the particle size. Fiber, especially cellulose and hemicellulose, is broken down in these chambers by microbes into the three volatile fatty acids, acetic acid, propionic acid, and butyric acid. Protein and nonstructural carbohydrate are also fermented, though the rumen and reticulum have different names, they represent the same functional space as digesta can move back and forth between them. Together, these chambers are called the reticulorumen, after this, the digesta is moved to the true stomach, the abomasum. The abomasum is the equivalent of the monogastric stomach. Digesta is finally moved into the intestine, where the digestion and absorption of nutrients occurs. Microbes produced in the reticulorumen are also digested in the small intestine, fermentation continues in the large intestine in the same way as in the reticulorumen. Only small amounts of glucose are absorbed from dietary carbohydrates, most dietary carbohydrates are fermented into VFAs in the rumen. The VFA propionate is used for around 70% of the glucose and glycogen produced, also, some mammals are pseudoruminants, which have a three-compartment stomach instead of four like ruminants. Pseudoruminants, like traditional ruminants, are foregut fermentors and most ruminate or chew cud, however, their anatomy and method of digestion differs significantly from that of a four-chambered ruminant. Monogastric herbivores, such as rhinoceroses, horses, and rabbits, are not ruminants and these hindgut fermenters digest cellulose in an enlarged cecum through the reingestion of the cecotrope

22.
Great Plains
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The region is known for supporting extensive cattle ranching and dry farming. The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies, some geographers include some territory of northern Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at the Rio Grande. The term Great Plains is used in the United States to describe a sub-section of the even more vast Interior Plains physiographic division and it also has currency as a region of human geography, referring to the Plains Indians or the Plains States. There is no region referred to as the Great Plains in The Atlas of Canada, in terms of human geography, the term prairie is more commonly used in Canada, and the region is known as the Prairie Provinces or simply the Prairies. The region is about 500 mi east to west and 2,000 mi north to south, much of the region was home to American bison herds until they were hunted to near extinction during the mid/late 19th century. It has an area of approximately 500,000 sq mi, current thinking regarding the geographic boundaries of the Great Plains is shown by this map at the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The term Great Plains, for the region west of about the 96th or 98th meridian, nevin Fennemans 1916 study, Physiographic Subdivision of the United States, brought the term Great Plains into more widespread usage. Before that the region was almost invariably called the High Plains, today the term High Plains is used for a subregion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains are the westernmost portion of the vast North American Interior Plains, during the Cretaceous Period, the Great Plains were covered by a shallow inland sea called the Western Interior Seaway. However, during the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene, the seaway had begun to recede, leaving thick marine deposits. During the Cenozoic era, specifically about 25 million years ago during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, existing forest biomes declined and grasslands became much more widespread. The grasslands provided a new niche for mammals, including many ungulates and glires, traditionally, the spread of grasslands and the development of grazers have been strongly linked. The vast majority of animals became extinct in North America at the end of the Pleistocene. In general, the Great Plains have a variety of weather through the year, with very cold and harsh winters and very hot. Wind speeds are very high, especially in winter. Grasslands are among the least protected biomes, humans have converted much of the prairies for agricultural purposes or to create pastures. The Great Plains have dust storms mostly every year or so, the 100th meridian roughly corresponds with the line that divides the Great Plains into an area that receive 20 in or more of rainfall per year and an area that receives less than 20 in. The region is subjected to extended periods of drought, high winds in the region may then generate devastating dust storms

23.
Colorado
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Colorado is a state in the United States encompassing most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,540,545 on July 1,2016, the state was named for the Colorado River, which Spanish travelers named the Río Colorado for the ruddy silt the river carried from the mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28,1861, Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State because it became a state in the same year as the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence. Colorado is noted for its landscape of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers. Denver is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado, residents of the state are properly known as Coloradans, although the term Coloradoan has been used archaically and lives on in the title of Fort Collins newspaper, the Coloradoan. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the states which have boundaries defined solely by lines of latitude and longitude. The summit of Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet elevation in Lake County is the highest point in Colorado, Colorado is the only U. S. state that lies entirely above 1,000 meters elevation. The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado and this point, which holds the distinction of being the highest low elevation point of any state, is higher than the high elevation points of 18 states and the District of Columbia. A little less than one half of the area of Colorado is flat, East of the Rocky Mountains are the Colorado Eastern Plains of the High Plains, the section of the Great Plains within Nebraska at elevations ranging from roughly 3,350 to 7,500 feet. The Colorado plains were mostly prairies, but they have many patches of forests, buttes. Eastern Colorado is presently covered in farmland and rangeland, along with small farming villages. Precipitation is fair, averaging from 15 to 25 inches annually, corn, wheat, hay, soybeans, and oats are all typical crops, and most of the villages and towns in this region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator. Irrigation water is available from the South Platte, the Arkansas River, and a few other streams, however, heavy use of ground water from wells for irrigation has caused underground water reserves to decline. As well as agriculture, eastern Colorado hosts considerable livestock, such as cattle ranches. Roughly 70% of Colorados population resides along the edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado. This region is protected from prevailing storms that blow in from the Pacific Ocean region by the high Rockies in the middle of Colorado. The Front Range includes Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley and other townships, on the other side of the Rockies, the significant population centers in Western Colorado are the cities of Grand Junction, Durango, and Montrose

24.
Grazing
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Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on plants such as grasses, or other multicellular organisms such as algae. In agriculture, grazing is one method used whereby domestic livestock are used to convert grass and other forage into meat, milk, many small selective herbivores follow larger grazers, who skim off the highest, tough growth of plants, exposing tender shoots. For terrestrial animals, grazing is normally distinguished from browsing in that grazing is eating grass or forbs, Grazing differs from true predation because the organism being grazed upon is not generally killed. Grazing differs from parasitism as the two live together in a constant state of physical externality. Water animals that feed for example on algae found on stones are called grazers-scrapers, grazers-scrapers feed also on microorganisms and dead organic matter on various substrates. Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on such as grasses. In zoology, graminivory is a form of grazing, a graminivore is an herbivorous animal that feeds primarily on grass. The word is derived from Latin graminis, meaning grass, and vorare, horses, cattle, capybara, hippopotamuses, grasshoppers, geese, and giant pandas are examples of graminivores. Some carnivores, such as dogs and cats, are known to eat grass occasionally, giant pandas have evolved to be obligate bamboo grazers, and 99% of their diet consists of sub-alpine bamboo species. Rabbits are herbivores that feed by grazing on grass, forbs and they graze heavily and rapidly for about the first half-hour of a grazing period, followed by about half an hour of more selective feeding. If the environment is relatively non-threatening, the rabbit will remain outdoors for many hours and their diet contains large amounts of cellulose, which is hard to digest. Rabbits solve this problem by using a form of hindgut fermentation and they pass two distinct types of feces, hard droppings and soft black viscous pellets, the latter of which are known as caecotrophs and are immediately eaten. Rabbits reingest their own droppings to digest their food further and extract sufficient nutrients, capybara are herbivores that graze mainly on grasses and aquatic plants, as well as fruit and tree bark. As with other grazers, they can be selective and will feed on the leaves of one species. They eat a variety of plants during the dry season. While they eat grass during the wet season, they have to switch to more abundant reeds during the dry season, the capybaras jaw hinge is not perpendicular and therefore they chew food by grinding back-and-forth rather than side-to-side. Capybara are coprophagous, as a source of gut flora, to help digest the cellulose in the grass that forms their normal diet. They may also regurgitate food to masticate again, similar to cud-chewing by a cow, as with other rodents, the front teeth of capybara grow continually to compensate for the constant wear from eating grasses, their cheek teeth also grow continuously

25.
Cereal
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A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year

26.
Beef
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Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle, particularly skeletal muscle. Humans have been eating beef since prehistoric times, Beef is a complete source of protein, and provides many of the essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals that humans need. Beef skeletal muscle meat can be cut into roasts, short ribs or steak, Some cuts are processed, and trimmings, usually mixed with meat from older, leaner cattle, are ground, minced or used in sausages. The blood is used in varieties of blood sausage. Some intestines are cooked and eaten as-is, but are often cleaned and used as natural sausage casings. The bones are used for making beef stock, Beef from steers and heifers is very similar. According to the most recent National Beef Quality Audit, heifer carcasses had slightly more marbling than steer carcasses, depending on economics, the number of heifers kept for breeding varies. The meat from older bulls is usually tougher, so it is used for mince. Beef is the third most widely consumed meat in the world, accounting for about 25% of meat production worldwide, after pork and poultry at 38% and 30% respectively. According to the data from OECD, the average Uruguayan ate over 42 kg of beef or veal in 2014, cattle are considered sacred in the culture of India and there is prohibition on selling and consumption of beef in much of India. Though India is the largest producer and exporter of meat in the world. In 2015, the worlds largest exporters of beef including the meat, were India, Brazil. Beef production is important to the economies of Uruguay, Canada, Paraguay, Mexico, Argentina, Belarus. The word beef is from the Latin bōs, in contrast to cow which is from Middle English cou, after the Norman Conquest, the French-speaking nobles who ruled England naturally used French words to refer to the meats they were served. Thus, various Anglo-Saxon words were used for the animal by the peasants, Beef is cognate with bovine through the Late Latin bovīnus. People have eaten the flesh of bovines from prehistoric times, some of the earliest known paintings, such as those of Lascaux. People domesticated cattle around 8000 BC to provide access to beef, milk. Most cattle originated in the Old World, with the exception of bison hybrids, examples include the Wagyū from Japan, Ankole-Watusi from Egypt, and longhorn Zebu from the Indian subcontinent

27.
Deforestation
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Deforestation, clearance or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use. Examples of deforestationinclude conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use, the most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 30% of Earths land surface is covered by forests, Deforestation occurs for multiple reasons, trees are cut down to be used for building or sold as fuel, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock and plantation. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and it has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation has also used in war to deprive the enemy of cover for its forces. Modern examples of this were the use of Agent Orange by the British military in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency, as of 2005, net deforestation rates have ceased to increase in countries with a per capita GDP of at least US$4,600. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland, disregard of ascribed value, lax forest management and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that allow deforestation to occur on a large scale. In many countries, deforestation, both naturally occurring and human-induced, is an ongoing issue, Deforestation causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record. More than half of all plant and land animal species in the live in tropical forests. Between 2000 and 2012,2.3 million square kilometres of forests around the world were cut down, as a result of deforestation, only 6.2 million square kilometres remain of the original 16 million square kilometres of forest that formerly covered the Earth. Experts do not agree on whether industrial logging is an important contributor to global deforestation, some argue that poor people are more likely to clear forest because they have no alternatives, others that the poor lack the ability to pay for the materials and labour needed to clear forest. One study found that population increases due to fertility rates were a primary driver of tropical deforestation in only 8% of cases. Other causes of contemporary deforestation may include corruption of government institutions, the distribution of wealth and power, population growth and overpopulation. Globalization is often viewed as another cause of deforestation, though there are cases in which the impacts of globalization have promoted localized forest recovery. The degradation of forest ecosystems has also traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation. Some commentators have noted a shift in the drivers of deforestation over the past 30 years, Deforestation is ongoing and is shaping climate and geography. Deforestation is a contributor to global warming, and is cited as one of the major causes of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Tropical deforestation is responsible for approximately 20% of world greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deforestation, mainly in tropical areas, could account for up to one-third of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions

28.
Bureau of Land Management
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President Harry S. Truman created the BLM in 1946 by combining two existing agencies, the General Land Office and the Grazing Service. Most BLM public lands are located in these 12 western states, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The mission of the BLM is to sustain the health, diversity, originally BLM holdings were described as land nobody wanted because homesteaders had passed them by. All the same, ranchers hold nearly 18,000 permits, the agency manages 221 wilderness areas,23 national monuments and some 636 other protected areas as part of the National Landscape Conservation System totaling about 30 million acres. There are more than 63,000 oil and gas wells on BLM public lands, total energy leases generated approximately $5.4 billion in 2013, an amount divided among the Treasury, the states, and Native American groups. The BLMs roots go back to the Land Ordinance of 1785 and these laws provided for the survey and settlement of the lands that the original 13 colonies ceded to the federal government after the American Revolution. As additional lands were acquired by the United States from Spain, France and other countries, the United States Congress directed that they be explored, surveyed, during the Revolutionary War, military bounty land was promised to soldiers who fought for the colonies. After the war, the Treaty of Paris of 1783, signed by the United States, England, France, in the 1780s, other states relinquished their own claims to land in modern-day Ohio. By this time, the United States needed revenue to function, Land was sold so that the government would have money to survive. In order to sell the land, surveys needed to be conducted, the Land Ordinance of 1785 instructed a geographer to oversee this work as undertaken by a group of surveyors. The first years of surveying were completed by trial and error, once the territory of Ohio had been surveyed, in 1812, Congress established the General Land Office as part of the Department of the Treasury to oversee the disposition of these federal lands. By the early 1800s, promised bounty land claims were finally fulfilled, over the years, other bounty land and homestead laws were enacted to dispose of federal land. Several different types of patents existed and these include cash entry, credit, homestead, Indian, military warrants, mineral certificates, private land claims, railroads, state selections, swamps, town sites, and town lots. A system of land offices spread throughout the territories, patenting land that was surveyed via the corresponding Office of the Surveyor General of a particular territory. This pattern gradually spread across the entire United States, the laws that spurred this system with the exception of the General Mining Law of 1872 and the Desert Land Act of 1877 have since been repealed or superseded. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allowed leasing, exploration, and production of selected commodities, such as coal, oil, gas, the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 established the United States Grazing Service to manage the public rangelands by establishment of advisory boards that set grazing fees. The Oregon and California Revested Lands Sustained Yield Management Act of 1937, commonly referred as the O&C Act, in 1946, the Grazing Service was merged with the General Land Office to form the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of the Interior. It took several years for new agency to integrate and reorganize

29.
Erosion
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In earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes that remove soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earths crust, then transport it away to another location. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, the rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Feedbacks are also possible between rates of erosion and the amount of eroded material that is carried by, for example. Processes of erosion that produce sediment or solutes from a place contrast with those of deposition, while erosion is a natural process, human activities have increased by 10-40 times the rate at which erosion is occurring globally. At well-known agriculture sites such as the Appalachian Mountains, intensive farming practices have caused erosion up to 100x the speed of the rate of erosion in the region. Excessive erosion causes both on-site and off-site problems, on-site impacts include decreases in agricultural productivity and ecological collapse, both because of loss of the nutrient-rich upper soil layers. In some cases, the end result is desertification. Off-site effects include sedimentation of waterways and eutrophication of bodies, as well as sediment-related damage to roads. Intensive agriculture, deforestation, roads, anthropogenic climate change and urban sprawl are amongst the most significant human activities in regard to their effect on stimulating erosion, however, there are many prevention and remediation practices that can curtail or limit erosion of vulnerable soils. Rainfall, and the surface runoff which may result from rainfall, produces four types of soil erosion, splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill erosion. Splash erosion is generally seen as the first and least severe stage in the erosion process. In splash erosion, the impact of a falling raindrop creates a crater in the soil. The distance these soil particles travel can be as much as 0.6 m vertically and 1.5 m horizontally on level ground. If the soil is saturated, or if the rate is greater than the rate at which water can infiltrate into the soil. If the runoff has sufficient flow energy, it will transport loosened soil particles down the slope, sheet erosion is the transport of loosened soil particles by overland flow. Rill erosion refers to the development of small, ephemeral concentrated flow paths which function as both sediment source and sediment delivery systems for erosion on hillslopes, generally, where water erosion rates on disturbed upland areas are greatest, rills are active. Flow depths in rills are typically of the order of a few centimetres or less and this means that rills exhibit hydraulic physics very different from water flowing through the deeper, wider channels of streams and rivers. Gully erosion occurs when water accumulates and rapidly flows in narrow channels during or immediately after heavy rains or melting snow

30.
Natural Resources Conservation Service
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Its name was changed in 1994 during the presidency of Bill Clinton to reflect its broader mission. It is a small agency, currently comprising about 11,000 employees. Its mission is to improve, protect, and conserve resources on private lands through a cooperative partnership with state. While its primary focus has been agricultural lands, it has many technical contributions to soil surveying, classification. NRCS is the agency in this project. The agency was founded largely through the efforts of Hugh Hammond Bennett, bennetts motivation was based on his knowledge of the detrimental effects of soil erosion and the impacts on U. S lands that led to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. On September 13,1933, the Soil Erosion Service was formed in the Department of the Interior, the Soil Conservation Service was in charge of 500 Civilian Conservation Corps camps between 1933 and 1942. The primary purpose of these camps was erosion control, Hugh Bennett continued as chief, a position he held until his retirement in 1952. On October 20,1994, the agency was renamed to the Natural Resources Conservation Service as part of the Federal Crop Insurance Reform, NRCS offers technical and financial assistance to farmers and ranchers. The financial assistance is authorized by the Farm Bill, a law that is renewed every five years, the 2014 Farm Bill consolidated 23 programs into 15. NRCS offers these services to land owners, conservation districts, tribes. NRCS also collects and shares information on the soil, water, air. The Conservation Title of the Farm Bill provides the funding to agricultural producers, all of these programs are voluntary. Conservation Stewardship Program CSP is targeted to ag producers who maintain a level of environmental stewardship. Regional Conservation Partnership Program RCPP consolidated four programs from the prior 2008 Farm Bill and it aims at more regional or watershed scale projects, rather than individual farms and ranches. ACEP includes technical and financial help to maintain or improve land for agriculture or environmental benefits, landowners volunteer to restore and protect forests in 30 or 10 year contracts. This program hands assisting funds to participants, the project began in 2010 and initially focused on the Mississippi Basin area. The main goal of the project is to implement better methods of managing water drainage from agricultural uses, in October 2011, The National Managing Water, Harvesting Results Summit was held to promote the drainage techniques used in hopes of people adopting them nationwide

31.
Wyoming
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Wyoming /waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/ is a state in the mountain region of the western United States. The state is the tenth largest by area, the least populous, Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. Cheyenne is the capital and the most populous city in Wyoming, the state population was estimated at 586,107 in 2015, which is less than the population of 31 of the largest U. S. cities. The Crow, Arapaho, Lakota, and Shoshone were some of the inhabitants of the region. Southwestern Wyoming was included in the Spanish Empire and then Mexican territory until it was ceded to the United States in 1848 at the end of the Mexican–American War. The region acquired the name Wyoming when a bill was introduced to Congress in 1865 to provide a government for the territory of Wyoming. The territory was named after the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, with the name ultimately being derived from the Munsee word xwé, wamənk, the mineral extraction industry—especially coal, oil, natural gas, and trona—along with the travel and tourism sector are the main drivers behind Wyomings economy. Agriculture has historically been an important component of the economy with the main commodities being livestock, hay, sugar beets, grain. The climate is generally semi-arid and continental, being drier and windier in comparison to the rest of the United States, except for the 1964 election, Wyoming has been a politically conservative state since the 1950s, with the Republican party winning every presidential election. Wyoming is one of three states to have borders along only straight latitudinal and longitudinal lines, rather than being defined by natural landmarks. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area, from the north border to the south border it is 276 miles, and from the east to the west border is 365 miles at its south end and 342 miles at the north end. The Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, the state is a great plateau broken by many mountain ranges. Surface elevations range from the summit of Gannett Peak in the Wind River Mountain Range, at 13,804 feet, to the Belle Fourche River valley in the states northeast corner, at 3,125 feet. In the northwest are the Absaroka, Owl Creek, Gros Ventre, Wind River, in the north central are the Big Horn Mountains, in the northeast, the Black Hills, and in the southern region the Laramie, Snowy and Sierra Madre ranges. The Snowy Range in the central part of the state is an extension of the Colorado Rockies in both geology and appearance. The Wind River Range in the west central part of the state is remote and includes more than 40 mountain peaks in excess of 13,000 ft tall in addition to Gannett Peak, the highest peak in the state. The Big Horn Mountains in the central portion are somewhat isolated from the bulk of the Rocky Mountains

32.
Piedmont (United States)
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The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the eastern United States. It sits between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New Jersey in the north to central Alabama in the south, the Piedmont Province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division which consists of the Piedmont Upland and the Piedmont Lowlands sections. The Atlantic Seaboard fall line marks the Piedmonts eastern boundary with the Coastal Plain, to the west, it is mostly bounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, the easternmost range of the main Appalachians. The width of the Piedmont varies, being quite narrow above the Delaware River, the Piedmonts area is approximately 80,000 square miles. The name Piedmont comes from the French term for the physical region, literally meaning foothill, ultimately from Latin pedemontium. The region is named after the Italian region of Piedmont, the lowlands which abut the Alps, the surface relief of the Piedmont is characterized by relatively low, rolling hills with heights above sea level between 200 feet and 800 feet to 1,000 feet. Its geology is complex, with rock formations of different materials. Essentially, the Piedmont is the remnant of ancient mountain chains that have since been eroded away. Geologists have identified at least five events which have led to sediment deposition, including the Grenville orogeny. The last major event in the history of the Piedmont was the break-up of Pangaea, large basins formed from the rifting and were subsequently filled by the sediments shed from the surrounding higher ground. The series of Mesozoic basins is almost entirely located inside the Piedmont region, Piedmont soils are generally clay-like and moderately fertile. In some areas they have suffered from erosion and over-cropping, particularly in the South where cotton was historically the chief crop. In the central Piedmont region of North Carolina and Virginia, corn is the crop, while in the north region there is more diversity, including orchards, dairying. The Piedmont region is associated with the Piedmont blues, a style of blues music that originated there in the late 19th century. According to the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society, most Piedmont blues musicians came from Virginia, the Carolinas, during the Great Migration, Black Americans migrated to the Piedmont. Thus, Piedmont blues was influenced by many types of such as ragtime, country. Many major cities are located on the line, the eastern boundary of the Piedmont. The fall line, where the land rises abruptly from the plain, marks the limit of navigability on many major rivers

33.
Nutrient cycle
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A nutrient cycle is the movement and exchange of organic and inorganic matter back into the production of living matter. The process is regulated by food web pathways that decompose matter into mineral nutrients, ecosystems are interconnected systems where matter and energy flows and is exchanged as organisms feed, digest, and migrate about. Minerals and nutrients accumulate in varied densities and uneven configurations across the planet, particulate matter is recycled by biodiversity inhabiting the detritus in soils, water columns, and along particle surfaces. Ecologists may refer to ecological recycling, organic recycling, biocycling, cycling, biogeochemical recycling, natural recycling, the difference is a matter of scale and compartmentalization with nutrient cycles feeding into global biogeochemical cycles. Solar energy flows through ecosystems along unidirectional and noncyclic pathways, whereas the movement of nutrients is cyclic. Global biogeochemical cycles are the sum product of localized ecological recycling regulated by the action of food webs moving particulate matter from one living generation onto the next, earths ecosystems have recycled mineral nutrients sustainably for billions of years. The nutrient cycle is natures recycling system, all forms of recycling have feedback loops that uses energy in the process of putting material resources back into use. Recycling in ecology is regulated to an extent during the process of decomposition. Ecosystems employ biodiversity in the webs that recycle natural materials, such as mineral nutrients. Recycling in natural systems is one of the ecosystem services that sustain. There is much overlap between the terms for biogeochemical cycle and nutrient cycle, most textbooks integrate the two and seem to treat them as synonymous terms. However, the terms often appear independently, nutrient cycle is more often used in direct reference to the idea of an intra-system cycle, where an ecosystem functions as a unit. From a practical point it does not make sense to assess a terrestrial ecosystem by considering the full column of air above it as well as the depths of Earth below it. While an ecosystem often has no boundary, as a working model it is practical to consider the functional community where the bulk of matter. Nutrient cycling occurs in ecosystems that participate in the biogeochemical cycles of the earth through a system of inputs and outputs. Ecosystems are capable of complete recycling, complete recycling means that 100% of the waste material can be reconstituted indefinitely. This idea was captured by Howard T, despite Georgescu-Roegens extensive intellectual contributions to the science of ecological economics, the fourth law has been rejected in line with observations of ecological recycling. However, some state that complete recycling is impossible for technological waste

34.
Water conservation
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Population, household size, and growth and affluence all affect how much water is used. Factors such as climate change have increased pressures on water resources especially in manufacturing. Many US cities have implemented policies aimed at water conservation. Energy conservation as water pumping, delivery and wastewater treatment facilities consume a significant amount of energy, in some regions of the world over 15% of total electricity consumption is devoted to water management. Habitat conservation where minimizing human water use helps to preserve freshwater habitats for wildlife and migrating waterfowl. The key activities that benefit water conservation are as follows, Any beneficial reduction in loss, use. Avoiding any damage to water quality, improving water management practices that reduce the use or enhance the beneficial use of water. One strategy in water conservation is rain water harvesting, digging ponds, lakes, canals, expanding the water reservoir, and installing rain water catching ducts and filtration systems on homes are different methods of harvesting rain water. Harvested and filtered rain water could be used for toilets, home gardening, lawn irrigation, another strategy in water conservation is protecting groundwater resources. When precipitation occurs, some infiltrates the soil and goes underground, Water in this saturation zone is called groundwater. Some examples of sources of groundwater contamination include storage tanks, septic systems, uncontrolled hazardous waste, landfills, atmospheric contaminants, chemicals. An additional strategy to water conservation is practicing sustainable methods of utilizing groundwater resources, groundwater flows due to gravity and eventually discharges into streams. Excess pumping of groundwater leads to a decrease in groundwater levels, ground and surface waters are connected and overuse of groundwater can reduce and, in extreme examples, diminish the water supply of lakes, rivers, and streams. In coastal regions, over pumping groundwater can increase saltwater intrusion which results in the contamination of water supply. Sustainable use of groundwater is essential in water conservation, a fundamental component to water conservation strategy is communication and education outreach of different water programs. Developing communication that educates science to land managers, policy makers, farmers, Water conservation programs involved in social solutions are typically initiated at the local level, by either municipal water utilities or regional governments. Common strategies include public outreach campaigns, tiered water rates, or restrictions on water use such as lawn watering. Cities in dry climates often require or encourage the installation of xeriscaping or natural landscaping in new homes to reduce water usage

35.
Groundwater recharge
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Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in the zone below plant roots and is often expressed as a flux to the water table surface. Recharge occurs both naturally and through anthropogenic processes, where rainwater and or reclaimed water is routed to the subsurface, groundwater is recharged naturally by rain and snow melt and to a smaller extent by surface water. Recharge may be impeded somewhat by human activities including paving, development and these activities can result in loss of topsoil resulting in reduced water infiltration, enhanced surface runoff and reduction in recharge. Use of groundwaters, especially for irrigation, may lower the water tables. Recharge can help move excess salts that accumulate in the zone to deeper soil layers. Tree roots increase water saturation into groundwater reducing water runoff, flooding temporarily increases river bed permeability by moving clay soils downstream, and this increases aquifer recharge. Artificial groundwater recharge is becoming important in India, where over-pumping of groundwater by farmers has led to underground resources becoming depleted. Another environmental issue is the disposal of waste through the water such as dairy farms, industrial. Wetlands help maintain the level of the table and exert control on the hydraulic head. This provides force for groundwater recharge and discharge to other waters as well, the extent of groundwater recharge by a wetland is dependent upon soil, vegetation, site, perimeter to volume ratio, and water table gradient. Groundwater recharge occurs through mineral soils found primarily around the edges of wetlands The soil under most wetlands is relatively impermeable, a high perimeter to volume ratio, such as in small wetlands, means that the surface area through which water can infiltrate into the groundwater is high. Groundwater recharge is typical in small wetlands such as prairie potholes, researchers have discovered groundwater recharge of up to 20% of wetland volume per season. If water falls uniformly over a field such that capacity of the soil is not exceeded. If instead water puddles in low-lying areas, the water volume concentrated over a smaller area may exceed field capacity resulting in water that percolates down to recharge groundwater. The larger the relative contributing runoff area is, the more focused infiltration is, the recurring process of water that falls relatively uniformly over an area, flowing to groundwater selectively under surface depressions is depression focused recharge. Water tables rise under such depressions, depression focused groundwater recharge can be very important in arid regions

36.
Cow-calf operation
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A cow-calf operation is a method of raising beef cattle in which a permanent herd of cows is kept by a farmer or rancher to produce calves for later sale. Cow-calf operations are one of the key aspects of the industry in the United States. In the British Isles, an operation may be known as a single-suckler herd. The goal of an operation is to produce young beef cattle. A rancher who works within such a model is called a cow-calf operator in the United States. Cow-calf operations are widespread throughout beef-producing countries, and the goal of an operation is to produce young beef cattle. True to the name, farm and ranch herds consist mostly of adult female cows, their calves, and young females, called heifers, some operations may raise their steers until slaughter weight, others sell them as weaned calves. They may have a few herd bulls and utilize natural mating, cattle from a cow-calf operation may be sold after they have been weaned to be matured elsewhere, such as at a feedlot, or may be raised to near-slaughter weight and sold at the age of 1–2 years. Older cows and bulls, if kept, may also be sold to slaughter after their reproductive years have ended, cow-calf operations generally raise their stock primarily on pasture and other forms of roughage rather than grain feeds, though they may provide vitamin and mineral supplementation. Pastures may be native or improved with forage designed to withstand grazing pressure, during periods of shortage, supplementary feeding may be carried out but it is by no means universal. In some areas, pasture is supported by crops for fattening, intensive rotational grazing systems can reduce the amount of land required, an acre or an acre and half, in some climates, can support a single cow-calf pair for an entire year. Cow-calf operations are divided into two types. First are those that produce feeder cattle to be raised by other agricultural enterprises and these sell their calves after they have been weaned and are under a year in age. The second are those that raise the calves for 1–2 years before selling them directly to slaughter, cow-calf operations are widespread throughout the United States. A1997 census found that this sector of the U. S. beef market produced over $40.5 billion, as of 2007 there were more than 765,000 cow-calf operators in the country, mostly concentrated in the Western and Southeastern U. S. states. Sale prices for calves sold from an operation are subject to fluctuation as part of the cattle cycle of financial markets. The relatively long period it takes a cow-calf operator to build up a beef herd, approximately 90% of Australian cows are in strictly cow-calf operations. In southern Australia beef cattle are reared on smaller properties as part of a mixed farming or grazing operation

37.
Western United States
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The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West, the Far West, or simply the West, traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because European settlement in the U. S. expanded westward after its founding, prior to about 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the western frontier. Since then, the frontier moved westward and eventually lands west of the Mississippi River came to be referred to as the West. The West contains several major biomes, the Western U. S. is the largest region of the country, covering more than half the land area of the United States. Given this expansive and diverse geography it is no wonder the region is difficult to specifically define, a majority of the historian respondents placed the eastern boundary of the West east of the Census definition out on the eastern edge of the Great Plains or on the Mississippi River. The survey respondents as a whole showed just how little agreement there was on the boundaries of the West, within a region as large and diverse as the Western United States, smaller areas with more closely shared demographics and geography have developed as subregions. Meanwhile, the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington can be considered part of the Northwest or Pacific Northwest, West Texas in the Chihuahuan Desert may be considered as part of the Western U. S. Fort Worth has long laid claim to be Where the West Begins, the West is still one of the most sparsely settled areas in the United States with 49.5 inhabitants per square mile. Only Texas with 78.0 inhabitants/sq mi, Washington with 86.0 inhabitants/sq mi. and California with 213.4 inhabitants/sq mi. exceed the national average of 77.98 inhabitants/sq mi. The entire Western region has also strongly influenced by European, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Native Americans. African and European Americans, however, continue to wield a stronger political influence because of the rates of citizenship and voting among Asians. The West also contains much of the Native American population in the U. S. particularly in the reservations in the Mountain. The Western United States has a sex ratio than any other region in the United States. Because the tide of development had not yet reached most of the West when conservation became an issue, agencies of the federal government own. National parks are reserved for activities such as fishing, camping, hiking, and boating, but other government lands also allow commercial activities like ranching, logging. The largest city in the region is Los Angeles, located on the West Coast, Other West Coast cities include San Diego, San Bernardino, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland. Prominent cities in the Mountain States include Denver, Colorado Springs, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Boise, El Paso, and Cheyenne. Along the Pacific Ocean coast lie the Coast Ranges, which and they collect a large part of the airborne moisture moving in from the ocean

38.
Stream
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A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and banks. Streams are important as conduits in the cycle, instruments in groundwater recharge. The biological habitat in the vicinity of a stream is called a riparian zone. Given the status of the ongoing Holocene extinction, streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats, the study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology and is a core element of environmental geography. Brook A stream smaller than a creek, especially one that is fed by a spring or seep and it is usually small and easily forded. A brook is characterised by its shallowness and its bed being composed primarily of rocks, creek In North America, Australia and New Zealand, a small to medium-sized natural stream. Sometimes navigable by motor craft and may be intermittent, in parts of Maryland, New England, the UK and India, a tidal inlet, typically in a salt marsh or mangrove swamp, or between enclosed and drained former salt marshes or swamps. In these cases, the stream is the stream, the course of the seawater through the creek channel at low. River A large natural stream, which may be a waterway, runnel the linear channel between the parallel ridges or bars on a shoreline beach or river floodplain, or between a bar and the shore. Tributary A contributory stream, or a stream which does not reach the sea, sometimes also called a branch or fork. There are a number of names for a stream. Allt is used in Highland Scotland, beck is used in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Dumfriesshire, Cumbria, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire. Bourne or winterbourne is used in the chalk downland of southern England, brook is used in the Midlands, Lancashire and Cheshire. Burn is used in Scotland and North East England, gill or ghyll is seen in the north of England and other areas influenced by Old Norse. Rivulet is an term encountered in Victorian era publications, stream is used in Southern England. Syke is used in lowland Scotland and Cumbria for a seasonal stream, branch is used to name streams in Maryland and Virginia. Falls is also used to name streams in Maryland, for streams/rivers which have waterfalls on them, little Gunpowder Falls and The Jones Falls are actually rivers named in this manner, unique to Maryland. Kill in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey comes from a Dutch language word meaning riverbed or water channel, run in Ohio, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or West Virginia can be the name of a stream

39.
Habitat
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A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant, or other type of organism. The term typically refers to the zone in which the organism lives and it is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population. Every organism has certain habitat needs for the conditions in which it will thrive, habitat types include polar, temperate, subtropical and tropical. The terrestrial vegetation type may be forest, steppe, grassland, the word habitat has been in use since about 1755 and derives from the Latin third-person singular present indicative of habitāre, to inhabit, from habēre, to have or to hold. Habitat can be defined as the environment of an organism. It is similar in meaning to a biotope, an area of environmental conditions associated with a particular community of plants. Generally speaking, animal communities are reliant on specific types of plant communities, some plants and animals are generalists, and their habitat requirements are met in a wide range of locations. The small white butterfly for example is found on all the continents of the world apart from Antarctica and its larvae feed on a wide range of Brassicas and various other plant species, and it thrives in any open location with diverse plant associations. Disturbance is important in the creation of biodiverse habitats, in the absence of disturbance, a climax vegetation cover develops that prevents the establishment of other species. Lightning strikes and toppled trees in tropical forests allow species richness to be maintained as pioneering species move in to fill the gaps created. Similarly coastal habitats can become dominated by kelp until the seabed is disturbed by a storm, another cause of disturbance is when an area may be overwhelmed by an invasive introduced species which is not kept under control by natural enemies in its new habitat. Terrestrial habitat types include forests, grasslands, wetlands and deserts, within these broad biomes are more specific habitats with varying climate types, temperature regimes, soils, altitudes and vegetation types. Many of these habitats grade into each other and each one has its own communities of plants. A habitat may suit a particular species well, but its presence or absence at any particular location depends to some extent on chance, on its dispersal abilities, freshwater habitats include rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, marshes and bogs. Although some organisms are found across most of these habitats, the majority have more specific requirements, similarly, aquatic plants can be floating, semi-submerged, submerged or grow in permanently or temporarily saturated soils besides bodies of water. Marine habitats include brackish water, estuaries, bays, the sea, the intertidal zone. Further variations include rock pools, sand banks, mudflats, brackish lagoons, sandy and pebbly beaches, the benthic zone or seabed provides a home for both static organisms, anchored to the substrate, and for a large range of organisms crawling on or burrowing into the surface. A desert is not the kind of habitat that favours the presence of amphibians, with their requirement for water to keep their skins moist, nevertheless, some frogs live in deserts, creating moist habitats underground and hibernating while conditions are adverse

40.
Nitrate
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Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the molecular formula NO−3 and a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. Nitrates also describe the functional group RONO2. These nitrate esters are a class of explosives. The anion is the base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement. The nitrate ion carries a charge of −1. This arrangement is used as an example of resonance. Like the isoelectronic carbonate ion, the ion can be represented by resonance structures. A common example of a nitrate salt is potassium nitrate. A rich source of nitrate in the human body comes from diets rich in leafy green foods, such as spinach. NO3- is the active component within beetroot juice and other vegetables. Nitrite and water are converted in the body to nitric oxide, nitrate salts are found naturally on earth as large deposits, particularly of nitratine, a major source of sodium nitrate. Nitrates are found in man-made fertilizers, as a byproduct of lightning strikes in earths nitrogen-oxygen rich atmosphere, nitric acid is produced when nitrogen dioxide reacts with water vapor. Nitrates are mainly produced for use as fertilizers in agriculture because of their solubility and biodegradability. The main nitrate fertilizers are ammonium, sodium, potassium, several million kilograms are produced annually for this purpose. The second major application of nitrates is as oxidizing agents, most notably in explosives where the oxidation of carbon compounds liberates large volumes of gases. Sodium nitrate is used to air bubbles from molten glass. Mixtures of the salt are used to harden some metals. Explosives and table tennis balls are made from celluloid, although nitrites are the nitrogen compound chiefly used in meat curing, nitrates are used in certain specialty curing processes where a long release of nitrite from parent nitrate stores is needed

41.
Turbidity
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Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality, fluids can contain suspended solid matter consisting of particles of many different sizes. These small solid particles cause the liquid to appear turbid, Turbidity is also applied to transparent solids such as glass or plastic. In plastic production haze is defined as the percentage of light that is deflected more than 2. 5° from the light direction. Turbidity in open water may be caused by growth of phytoplankton, human activities that disturb land, such as construction, mining and agriculture, can lead to high sediment levels entering water bodies during rain storms due to storm water runoff. Certain industries such as quarrying, mining and coal recovery can generate high levels of turbidity from colloidal rock particles. In drinking water, the higher the turbidity level, the higher the risk that people may develop gastrointestinal diseases and this is especially problematic for immunocompromised people, because contaminants like viruses or bacteria can become attached to the suspended solids. The suspended solids interfere with water disinfection with chlorine because the act as shields for the virus. Similarly, suspended solids can protect bacteria from ultraviolet sterilization of water, high turbidity levels can also affect the ability of fish gills to absorb dissolved oxygen. This phenomenon has been observed throughout the Chesapeake Bay in the eastern United States. For many mangrove areas, high turbidity is needed to support certain species, for most mangroves along the eastern coast of Australia, in particular Moreton Bay, turbidity levels as high as 600 Nephelometric Turbidity Units are needed for proper ecosystem health. The most widely used measurement unit for turbidity is the Formazin Turbidity Unit, ISO refers to its units as FNU. ISO7027 provides the method in water quality for the determination of turbidity and it is used to determine the concentration of suspended particles in a sample of water by measuring the incident light scattered at right angles from the sample. The scattered light is captured by a photodiode, which produces a signal that is converted to a turbidity. Open source hardware has been developed following the ISO7027 method to measure turbidity reliably using an Arduino microcontroller, there are several practical ways of checking water quality, the most direct being some measure of attenuation of light as it passes through a sample column of water. The alternatively used Jackson Candle method is essentially the inverse measure of the length of a column of water needed to completely obscure a candle flame viewed through it, the more water needed, the clearer the water. Of course water alone produces some attenuation, and any substances dissolved in the water that produce color can attenuate some wavelengths, modern instruments do not use candles, but this approach of attenuation of a light beam through a column of water should be calibrated and reported in JTUs. The propensity of particles to scatter a light focused on them is now considered a more meaningful measure of turbidity in water

42.
Eutrophication
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Eutrophication, or more precisely hypertrophication, is the enrichment of a water body with nutrients, usually with an excess amount of nutrients. This process induces growth of plants and algae and due to the biomass load, one example is the bloom or great increase of phytoplankton in a water body as a response to increased levels of nutrients. Eutrophication is almost always induced by the discharge of phosphate-containing detergents, fertilizers, or sewage, Eutrophication arises from the oversupply of nutrients, which leads to overgrowth of plants and algae. After such organisms die, the degradation of their biomass consumes the oxygen in the water. According to Ullmanns Encyclopedia, the limiting factor for eutrophication is phosphate. Phosphorus is a nutrient for plants to live, and is the limiting factor for plant growth in many freshwater ecosystems. Phosphate adheres tightly to soil, so it is transported by erosion. Once translocated to lakes, the extraction of phosphate into water is slow, the sources of these excess phosphates are phosphates in detergent, industrial/domestic run-offs, and fertilizers. With the phasing out of phosphate-containing detergents in the 1970s, industrial/domestic run-off, cultural Eutrophication is the process that speeds up natural eutrophication because of human activity. Extra nutrients are supplied by treatment plants, golf courses, fertilizers, farms. When algae die, they decompose and the contained in that organic matter are converted into inorganic form by microorganisms. This decomposition process consumes oxygen, which reduces the concentration of dissolved oxygen, the depleted oxygen levels in turn may lead to fish kills and a range of other effects reducing biodiversity. Nutrients may become concentrated in a zone and may only be made available again during autumn turn-over or in conditions of turbulent flow. The water becomes cloudy, typically coloured a shade of green, yellow, brown, Eutrophication also decreases the value of rivers, lakes and aesthetic enjoyment. Health problems can occur where eutrophic conditions interfere with drinking water treatment, human activities can accelerate the rate at which nutrients enter ecosystems. Elevated levels of compounds of nitrogen can increase nitrogen availability. Phosphorus is often regarded as the culprit in cases of eutrophication in lakes subjected to point source pollution from sewage pipes. The concentration of algae and the state of lakes correspond well to phosphorus levels in water

43.
Species diversity
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Species diversity is the number of different species that are represented in a given community. The effective number of species refers to the number of equally abundant species needed to obtain the mean proportional species abundance as that observed in the dataset of interest. Species diversity consists of two components, species richness and species evenness, species richness is a simple count of species, whereas species evenness quantifies how equal the abundances of the species are. Species diversity in a dataset can be calculated by first taking the average of species proportional abundances in the dataset. In the equation, S is the number of species in the dataset. The proportional abundances themselves are used as weights, the equation is often written in the equivalent form, q D =1 / The value of q defines which kind of mean is used. Q =0 corresponds to the harmonic mean, which is 1/S because the p i values cancel out. Q =1 is undefined, except that the limit as q approaches 1 is well defined, as q approaches infinity, the generalized mean approaches the maximum p i value. Consequently, large values of q lead to species diversity than small values of q for the same dataset. If all species are abundant in the dataset, changing the value of q has no effect. Negative values of q are not used, because then the number of species would exceed the actual number of species. As q approaches infinity, the generalized mean approaches the minimum p i value. In many real datasets, the least abundant species is represented by a single individual, the same equation can be used to calculate the diversity in relation to any classification, not only species. Often researchers have used the values given by one or more diversity indices to quantify species diversity, such indices include species richness, the Shannon index, the Simpson index, and the complement of the Simpson index. When interpreted in terms, each one of these indices corresponds to a different thing. Species richness quantifies the actual rather than number of species. The Shannon index equals log, and in practice quantifies the uncertainty in the identity of an individual that is taken at random from the dataset. The Simpson index equals 1/qD and quantifies the probability that two individuals taken at random from the dataset represent the same species, the Gini-Simpson index equals 1 - 1/qD and quantifies the probability that the two randomly taken individuals represent different species

Agriculture
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Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousan

3.
Domestic sheep and a cow (heifer) pastured together in South Africa.

4.
A Sumerian harvester's sickle made from baked clay (ca. 3000 BC).

Environmental impact of agriculture
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The environmental impact of agriculture varies based on the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. Ultimately, the impact depends on the production practices of the system used by farmers. The connection between emissions into the environment and the system is indirect, as it also depends on other climate variables such a

1.
Water pollution in a rural stream due to runoff from farming activity in New Zealand.

Pollution
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Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpo

1.
The litter problem on the coast of Guyana, 2010

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Air pollution in the US, 1973

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Smog Pollution in Taiwan

4.
The Lachine Canal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Fossil fuel
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Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms, containing energy originating in ancient photosynthesis. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include petroleum, coal, and natural gas.

1.
Coal, one of the fossil fuels.

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A petrochemical refinery in Grangemouth, Scotland, UK

3.
An oil well in the Gulf of Mexico

4.
Air

Organic farming
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Organic farming is an alternative agricultural system which originated early in the 20th century in reaction to rapidly changing farming practices. Organic agriculture continues to be developed by various organic agriculture organizations today and it relies on fertilizers of organic origin such as compost, manure, green manure, and bone meal and p

1.
Agriculture

2.
Vegetables from organic farming. A 10-year-long study showed that fruits and vegetables from organic farming contains up to 180 times less pesticide residues than conventional products..

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Organic cultivation of mixed vegetables in Capay, California. Note the hedgerow in the background.

4.
Chloroxylon is used for Pest Management in Organic Rice Cultivation in Chhattisgarh, India

Free range
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Free range denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals, for at least part of the day, can roam freely outdoors, rather than being confined in an enclosure for 24 hours each day. Free range may apply to meat, eggs or dairy farming, the term is used in two senses that do not overlap completely, as a farmer-centric description of husbandry

1.
Commercial free range hens

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A small flock of mixed free-range chickens being fed outdoors.

3.
Free range ducks in Hainan Province, China

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Free range meat chickens seek shade on a U.S. farm

Intensive animal farming
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The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption. There are issues regarding whether factory farming is sustainable and ethical, there are differences in the way factory farming techniques are practiced around the world. There is a debate over the benefits, risks and ethical questions of factory farming. The issues i

1.
Agriculture

2.
A commercial chicken house with open sides raising broiler pullets for meat

3.
Hens in Brazil

4.
Example of self made recirculation Aquaculture system

Subsistence agriculture
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Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed themselves and their families. The output is mostly for local requirements with little or no surplus trade, the typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to feed and clothe themselves during the year. Pl

1.
Like most farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, this Cameroonian man cultivates at the subsistence level.

Hunting
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Hunting is the practice of killing or trapping animals, or pursuing or tracking them with the intent of doing so. Hunting wildlife or feral animals is most commonly done by humans for food, recreation, to predators that are dangerous to humans or domestic animals. Lawful hunting is distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capt

Fishing
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Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild, techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping. Fishing may include catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as molluscs, cephalopods, crustaceans, the term is not normally applied to catching farmed fish, or to

1.
Stilts fishermen, Sri Lanka

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Fishing with nets, Mexico

3.
Stone Age fish hook made from bone

4.
Painting of A Brixham trawler by William Adolphus Knell. The painting is now in the National Maritime Museum.

Livestock's Long Shadow
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The assessment was based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture required for livestock production. The report states that the sector is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from

1.
Livestock's Long Shadow

Food and Agriculture Organization
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is an agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements. Its Latin motto, fiat panis, translates as let there be bread, as of 6 Januar

1.
Lester Bowles Pearson presiding at a plenary session of the founding conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. October 1945

2.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

3.
FAO headquarters in Rome.

4.
José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director General

United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the

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1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of the United Nations' original three branches: The Four Policemen, an executive branch, and an international assembly of forty UN member states.

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Flag

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The Chilean delegation signing the UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945

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Dag Hammarskjöld was a particularly active Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in 1961.

Greenhouse gas
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A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earths atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earths surface would be abo

1.
The false colors in this image represent concentrations of carbon monoxide in the lower atmosphere, ranging from about 390 parts per billion (dark brown pixels), to 220 parts per billion (red pixels), to 50 parts per billion (blue pixels).

Biodiversity
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Biodiversity, a contraction of biological diversity, generally refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. One of the most widely used definitions defines it in terms of the variability within species and it is a measure of the variety of organisms present in different ecosystems. This can refer to genetic variation, ecosystem variation

1.
A sampling of fungi collected during summer 2008 in Northern Saskatchewan mixed woods, near LaRonge is an example regarding the species diversity of fungi. In this photo, there are also leaf lichens and mosses.

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A conifer forest in the Swiss Alps (National Park).

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Summer field in Belgium (Hamois). The blue flowers are Centaurea cyanus and the red are Papaver rhoeas.

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Amazon Rainforest in South America

Water pollution
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Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies. This form of environmental degradation occurs when pollutants are directly or indirectly discharged into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds, Water pollution affects the entire biosphere – plants and organisms living in these bodies of water. In almost all cases t

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Raw sewage and industrial waste in the New River as it passes from Mexicali to Calexico, California

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Pollution in the Lachine Canal, Canada

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Point source pollution – Shipyard – Rio de Janeiro.

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Poster to teach people in South Asia about human activities leading to the pollution of water sources

Poultry
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Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the eggs they produce, their meat, or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae, especially the order Galliformes, if there are ducks and or geese that are kept as pets they shall not be considered poultry unlike domesticated chickens. Poultry also include

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Poultry of the World

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Cock with comb and wattles

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Roman mosaic depicting a cockfight

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Pekin ducks

Tillage
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Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shovelling, picking, mattock work, hoeing, examples of draft-animal-powered or mechanized work include ploughing, rototilling, rolling with cultipack

1.
Cultivating after an early rain

Holocene extinction
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The large number of extinctions spans numerous families of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods. With widespread degradation of highly biodiverse habitats such as reefs and rainforest, as well as other areas. The Holocene extinction includes the disappearance of land animals known as megafauna. These ext

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The dodo, a flightless bird of Mauritius, became extinct during the mid-late seventeenth century after humans destroyed the forests where the birds made their homes and introduced mammals that ate their eggs.

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The quagga became extinct in 1883.

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The passenger pigeon became extinct in 1914.

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The Caribbean monk seal was officially declared extinct in 2008.

Pork
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Pork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig. It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC, Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved. Curing extends the life of the pork products. Ham, smoked pork, gammon, bacon and sausage are examples of preserved pork, charcuterie is th

1.
Pork belly cut, shows layers of muscle and fats

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Slow-roasting pig on a rotisserie

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Pork being prepared in France during the mid-19th century

Ruminant
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Ruminants are mammals that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through microbial actions. The process typically requires the fermented ingesta to be regurgitated and chewed again, the process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulat

Great Plains
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The region is known for supporting extensive cattle ranching and dry farming. The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies, some geographers include some territory of northern Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at the Rio Grande. The term Great Plains is used in the United States to describe a sub-section of the even more vast Inter

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View of the Great Plains near Lincoln, Nebraska

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Ecoregions of the Great Plains

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The Great Plains before the native grasses were ploughed under, Haskell County, Kansas, 1897, showing a man sitting behind a buffalo wallow.

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Bison at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma

Colorado
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Colorado is a state in the United States encompassing most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the 50 United

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The Elk Mountains near Aspen, Colorado

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Flag

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Mountains and lakes near Breckenridge, Colorado

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A view of the arid high plains in Southeastern Colorado

Grazing
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Grazing is a method of feeding in which a herbivore feeds on plants such as grasses, or other multicellular organisms such as algae. In agriculture, grazing is one method used whereby domestic livestock are used to convert grass and other forage into meat, milk, many small selective herbivores follow larger grazers, who skim off the highest, tough

1.
Red Kangaroo grazing

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A Masaai herdsman grazing his cattle inside the Ngorongoro crater

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Green sea turtle grazing seagrass.

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Grazing capybara

Cereal
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A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are

1.
Cereal

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A wheat field in Dorset, England

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Cereal grain seeds from left to right: wheat, spelt, barley, oat.

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Threshing; Tacuinum Sanitatis, 14th century

Beef
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Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle, particularly skeletal muscle. Humans have been eating beef since prehistoric times, Beef is a complete source of protein, and provides many of the essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals that humans need. Beef skeletal muscle meat can be cut into roasts, short ribs or steak, Some cuts are proces

1.
An uncooked rib roast

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Beef rump steak on grill pan, cooked to medium rare

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Inspected carcasses tagged by the USDA

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Roast beef cooked under high heat

Deforestation
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Deforestation, clearance or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use. Examples of deforestationinclude conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use, the most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 30% of Earths land surface is covered by fo

1.
Satellite photograph of deforestation in progress in the Tierras Bajas project in eastern Bolivia.

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The last batch of sawnwood from the peat forest in Indragiri Hulu, Sumatra, Indonesia. Deforestation for oil palm plantation.

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Illegal slash and burn practice in Madagascar, 2010

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Fires on Borneo and Sumatra, 2006. People use slash-and-burn deforestation to clear land for agriculture.

Bureau of Land Management
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President Harry S. Truman created the BLM in 1946 by combining two existing agencies, the General Land Office and the Grazing Service. Most BLM public lands are located in these 12 western states, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The mission of the BLM is to sustain the

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Horses crossing a plain near the Simpson Park Wilderness Study Area in central Nevada, managed by the Battle Mountain BLM Field Office

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Flag of the Bureau of Land Management

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Snow-covered cliffs of Snake River Canyon, Idaho, managed by the Boise District of the BLM

4.
Calm Before the Storm: Fatigued BLM Firefighters taking a break after a fire in Oregon in 2008

Erosion
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In earth science, erosion is the action of surface processes that remove soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earths crust, then transport it away to another location. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, the rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Feedbacks are

1.
An actively eroding rill on an intensively-farmed field in eastern Germany

2.
A natural arch produced by the wind erosion of differentially weathered rock in Jebel Kharaz, Jordan.

Natural Resources Conservation Service
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Its name was changed in 1994 during the presidency of Bill Clinton to reflect its broader mission. It is a small agency, currently comprising about 11,000 employees. Its mission is to improve, protect, and conserve resources on private lands through a cooperative partnership with state. While its primary focus has been agricultural lands, it has ma

1.
NRCS Chief James Weller in December 2012

2.
2008 Farm Bill logo (USA)

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USDA-NRCS State Conservationist Salvador Salinas with Federal and state partners held a press conference at the Arkansas National Wildlife Refuge, in Austwell, TX, on Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. Salinas covered the recent announcement of the USDA-NRCS Gulf of Mexico Initiative (GoMI) efforts to improve water quality, habitat, and the health of the Gulf ecosystem.

Wyoming
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Wyoming /waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/ is a state in the mountain region of the western United States. The state is the tenth largest by area, the least populous, Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. Cheyenne is the capital and the most popu

1.
Wind River Canyon

2.
Flag

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Thunder Basin National Grassland close to Douglas, Wyoming

4.
Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge

Piedmont (United States)
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The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the eastern United States. It sits between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New Jersey in the north to central Alabama in the south, the Piedmont Province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division which consists of the Piedmont Upland and

1.
The James River winds its way among Piedmont hills in central Virginia. Most of the hills in the Piedmont region are smaller than these.

Nutrient cycle
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A nutrient cycle is the movement and exchange of organic and inorganic matter back into the production of living matter. The process is regulated by food web pathways that decompose matter into mineral nutrients, ecosystems are interconnected systems where matter and energy flows and is exchanged as organisms feed, digest, and migrate about. Minera

1.
Composting within agricultural systems capitalizes upon the natural services of nutrient recycling in ecosystems. Bacteria, fungi, insects, earthworms, bugs, and other creatures dig and digest the compost into fertile soil. The minerals and nutrients in the soil is recycled back into the production of crops.

Water conservation
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Population, household size, and growth and affluence all affect how much water is used. Factors such as climate change have increased pressures on water resources especially in manufacturing. Many US cities have implemented policies aimed at water conservation. Energy conservation as water pumping, delivery and wastewater treatment facilities consu

1.
United States postal stamp advocating water conservation.

2.
Drip irrigation system in New Mexico

3.
Overhead irrigation, center pivot design

4.
Air

Groundwater recharge
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Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in the zone below plant roots and is often expressed as a flux to the water table surface. Recharge occurs both natu

1.
Air

2.
Water balance

Cow-calf operation
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A cow-calf operation is a method of raising beef cattle in which a permanent herd of cows is kept by a farmer or rancher to produce calves for later sale. Cow-calf operations are one of the key aspects of the industry in the United States. In the British Isles, an operation may be known as a single-suckler herd. The goal of an operation is to produ

1.
A Hereford cow licks her newborn calf clean

2.
Murray Grey cows and calves on the Northern Tablelands.

3.
Weaner calves for sale by auction.

Western United States
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The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West, the Far West, or simply the West, traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because European settlement in the U. S. expanded westward after its founding, prior to about 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the

1.
While the West is defined by many cultures, the American cowboy is occasionally seen as iconic of the region, here portrayed by C.M. Russell

2.
Regional definitions vary from source to source. This map reflects the Western United States as defined by the Census Bureau, which includes 13 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. In turn, this region is sub-divided into Mountain and Pacific areas.

3.
The West, as the most recent part of the United States, is often known for broad highways and freeways and open space. Here is a highway in Northern Arizona.

4.
The geography of the Western United States is split into three major physiographic divisions: the Rocky Mountain System (areas 16-19 on map), the Intermontane Plateaus (20-22), and the Pacific Mountain System (23-25).

Stream
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A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and banks. Streams are important as conduits in the cycle, instruments in groundwater recharge. The biological habitat in the vicinity of a stream is called a riparian zone. Given the status of the ongoing Holocene extinction, streams play an important corridor role in connecting fra

1.
Rocky stream in Italy

2.
Stream in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia

3.
A rocky creek in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota, US

4.
Creek in Heathcote National Park, Australia

Habitat
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A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant, or other type of organism. The term typically refers to the zone in which the organism lives and it is the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the physical environment that surrounds a species population. Every organism has ce

1.
This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area is a rich habitat for sea life.

2.
Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat.

3.
Subdisciplines

4.
General

Nitrate
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Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the molecular formula NO−3 and a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. Nitrates also describe the functional group RONO2. These nitrate esters are a class of explosives. The anion is the base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar a

1.
Table tennis balls are made from celluloid, an organic nitrate.

2.
Nitrate

Turbidity
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Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality, fluids can contain suspended solid matter consisting of particles of many different sizes. These small solid particles

1.
Turbidity standards of 5, 50, and 500 NTU

2.
Turbid creek water caused by heavy rains.

3.
Turbidimeters used at a water purification plant to measure turbidity (in NTU) of raw water and clear water after filtration.

Eutrophication
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Eutrophication, or more precisely hypertrophication, is the enrichment of a water body with nutrients, usually with an excess amount of nutrients. This process induces growth of plants and algae and due to the biomass load, one example is the bloom or great increase of phytoplankton in a water body as a response to increased levels of nutrients. Eu

1.
The eutrophication of the Potomac River is evident from the bright green water, caused by a dense bloom of cyanobacteria.

2.
Eutrophication in a canal

3.
Eutrophication is apparent as increased turbidity in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, imaged from orbit.

Species diversity
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Species diversity is the number of different species that are represented in a given community. The effective number of species refers to the number of equally abundant species needed to obtain the mean proportional species abundance as that observed in the dataset of interest. Species diversity consists of two components, species richness and spec

2.
The area ceded to the United States by Great Britain in 1783 (light brown) is usually recognized as the Eastern United States. Louisiana and Florida acquisitions were recognized as the Western and Southern frontiers in early days of the Republic. Although east of the Rockies, Texas is considered Western.

3.
This diagram of the fast carbon cycle shows the movement of carbon between land, atmosphere, and oceans in billions of tons of carbon per year. Yellow numbers are natural fluxes, red are human contributions in billions of tons of carbon per year. White numbers indicate stored carbon.